


A Thing Without a Name

by Impractical Beekeeping (Impractical_Beekeeping)



Series: Songs of Expedience [6]
Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-07
Updated: 2013-03-24
Packaged: 2017-11-11 15:26:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 28,312
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/479996
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Impractical_Beekeeping/pseuds/Impractical%20Beekeeping
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock and John take on their first case following the Fall.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

A grey-haired Detective Inspector frowns at his computer screen, which displays an interdepartmental message concerning the missing keys to Wembley.  _He'd know exactly where they've gone,_  he thinks. But Sherlock Holmes is dead.

This is going to be an incredibly expensive mistake for someone. He's grateful this is not his problem.

He  _hopes_  it won't become his problem.

* * *

In Hyde Park, an impeccably dressed man carrying an umbrella looks out towards the place where the Wellington Arch used to stand. After London recovers from its Olympic fever, they'll erect a suitable monument to the Arch Bomb victims there. Sculptors and architects are already submitting conceptual sketches to the appropriate agency. Most of them are dreadfully vulgar. He briefly considers the somewhat pedestrian challenge of subtly influencing the ostensibly democratic selection process.

A pale woman with gloriously titian hair approaches him and asks him for the time. An ordinary observer would identify her as an American tourist. It's something in her voice, her dress, her walk. 

There is, of course, nothing ordinary about him. He sees beyond surfaces, no matter how artfully presented.

He shows her the face of his watch, and when she darts away in consternation, dropping a weatherproof map of London in her haste, he calmly bends down to retrieve it.

People can be so astonishingly careless.

* * *

A slight, rather careworn man in a checked shirt sits at a scarred kitchen table and stares accusingly at the crisp white sheet of paper in his hand.

_Dr. John H. Watson_

_221b Baker Street_

_London_

_NW1 6XE_

_20 July 2012_

_Dear Dr. Watson._

_It is with great pleasure that we extend the following offer of employment on behalf of the Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust..._

He is perfectly qualified for the position. It would be madness not to accept.

The thing is, he hadn't submitted an application.

* * *

He is suspended in waiting like an insect in amber. Concealment is a small price to pay for his return to life, but it's growing harder by the day.

Everything around him clamours for attention, but none of it matters  _enough._  He longs for depth and colour and something new.

There  _is_  something new, but it is small and fragile. It is neither person nor thing. It could be classified, perhaps, as an ambience. It is a thought that hasn't found words. A neurochemical souvenir:  _Wish you were here._

It isn't enough. He needs something quantifiable; something he can safely examine without its components falling to ash beneath his scrutiny. Something that unquestionably demonstrates his own tendency to exist as he, in turn, illuminates the interior mechanisms of a stranger's actions. He's gone too long without it: the Work.

* * *

A man leans into the wind, steadying himself against the rails on the deck as the familiar mass of Holyhead looms through the spray. He finds it difficult to keep his footing, but he'd rather be here alone than belowdecks in the hubbub of families and fruit machines.

Here, at least, he can hear himself think. It would be nice if he could come to a conclusion before their arrival, but it's not likely. He cannot get beyond this deceptively simple question:

What is blood worth?

It's entangled with other concepts like  _family_  and  _loyalty._  Do they retain value, though, if the participants define their importance differently? What, if anything, invalidates such bonds? What, if anything, requires action?

He's wondered about this for years, but only recently has it become a pressing concern. He's got some time, at least, to think it over. Some, but not much.

Soon he'll be on a train, rushing through the Welsh countryside towards England, towards London.

Soon the games will begin.

 


	2. What We Need

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John attempts to keep a secret, and Sherlock works incredibly hard to let him.

It's Sunday morning—nearly noon—and the flat seethes with unspoken discontent. John is worrying the end of his pencil, trying to organise his thoughts. Sherlock is sprawled on the sofa with John's laptop, watching an archived BBC One documentary on Tuareg salt caravans.

John is trying to organise his thoughts, but if he's honest, he's not doing very well. He should be sorting out the more immediate bits of the future; that was his goal when he sat down with an old notebook. Instead, he finds himself staring at his flatmate.

 _That_ was a bit of the future that had been worked out, at least. They were definitely flatmates again. It was one of the things they had agreed upon when they had finally begun to speak to each other properly at last. There had been a certain amount of necessary honesty, which should have been freeing, but instead it had led to a new sort of awkwardness. And now, here he was, keeping secrets already. John hadn't intended to conceal anything from Sherlock, but he simply hadn't got round to saying anything about the job offer.

Surely it was his own decision to make. While John hadn't actually applied for this particular position, he  _had_ begun the process of looking into other vacancies. He had begun doing so soon after he found himself trapped at home with a recovering, not-dead consulting detective. At the time, the hunt was something to do during the long, frustrating hours he spent on high alert while Sherlock slept or stumbled around the flat in ominous silence. No matter how things were to be resolved between them, John knew he needed to move forward with his own life. Recent events had shown him, through contrast, that the time he'd spent playing GP at Sarah's practice had been unsatisfying.

He'd started looking into emergency medicine, his rationale being that he'd be doing genuine good and making use of skills from the MEDEVAC days. Perhaps there'd be a bit more removing broken glass from university students after drunken arguments than actual life-saving, but still. He  _could_  be saving lives. He would not be standing idly by when something like the Arch Bombing occurred. He would be of use.

The thing was, though, that if he found something—if he and Sherlock ever returned to their previous lives, to solving crimes and all of that—there would be times when John could not simply call in sick at a moment's notice. His work would be of equal importance. Sherlock would have to respect that. Could he?

John had no idea.

Consequently, he had failed to mention the job offer he'd received without interview, without so much as an application. The offer had arrived like something in a dream, and absurd as it seemed, it appeared to be legitimate. That sort of understated bureaucratic wizardry could only mean one thing: Mycroft Holmes. What else did it mean? Was it a merely an odd way of saying  _Thanks for everything, but he's fine now, so kindly move along?_  No, because if Mycroft had wanted that, the offer would have come in from further afield. This job was in London. So it probably meant something more like _Please stay with him._  Thanks might still be included, but they were not the most important component.

It's a bit unfair. It feels like a Faustian bargain: _Do this one thing, and you can have everything you want._

Frankly, it's insulting. Because John  _is_ staying, isn't he? Of his own volition, and completely independent of Mycroft's efforts to secure his compliance.

To be fair, if John thinks back to the day he'd accepted responsibility for seeing Sherlock through withdrawal, he hadn't been quite so clear in his resolve at the time. He'd been angry and muddled. Also, guilty.

So he chews at his pencil, staring at his flatmate and trying not to betray his inner turmoil. It will probably be a relief when Sherlock says something to indicate John has failed to conceal his quandary from him.

* * *

Sherlock is studiously avoiding looking at John. He has struggled to occupy himself thoroughly in thoughts of salt blocks, hewn from the desert and carried endless miles strapped to pack animals, scoured by sand and imbued with fascinating mineral compounds along the way.

They  _could_  be fascinating. It's the sort of thing he could examine,  _could_  find interesting...if he had a sample...if he had his microscope. He doesn't of course. He hasn't asked.

He hasn't asked for that, or his violin, or anything at all, really. Life has become a perpetual exercise in self-denial. He's not some sort of early Christian ascetic, so what is the  _point?_

More urgently, what is the point of not talking about The Letter?

Why is Sherlock denying the impulse to leap to his feet and say  _I know about the letter. It's your choice what you do. I won't be—_

Won't be  _what?_

An impediment?

Apparently, the universe is infinite. Surely, then, there is enough room in it for two men to sit and think in silence, without boundaries of private contemplation being violated.

It might be too late. Boundaries  _have_  been crossed. Of necessity, perhaps, but they have been. Sherlock looks at John—or  _doesn't_  look at John—and he feels the ghost of the doctor's hands on his back, almost distressingly real although it has been days since That Day (the day they talked and Sherlock fell apart).

Catharsis is supposed to be a good thing. Various cultures have institutionalised it in festivals, in art, in literature, in music.

Music is another thing that cannot be allowed, because that would announce his presence, his return. Muted plucking wouldn't be enough, would it? It wouldn't. He'd want to hear it sing.

There's a very real possibility he wouldn't be able to play very well, anyway. A year has passed, but Sherlock hasn't completely regained strength or flexibility in his arm and shoulder since he broke his clavicle. While the thought of  _pain_  isn't a particularly strong deterrent, the thought of inaccuracy, of being less-than-good,  _is._  The thought of asking Mycroft to return the violin to him, of betraying any sort of need, is worse.

He pushes his soft (pointless) fingers together, flexing the phalangeal joints beyond discomfort. He grinds his teeth. He's been doing this for some time now, apparently. He can detect the coppery savour of blood.

It is so hatefully quiet here...

Ah. The documentary has ended. How long has he been sitting here, looking at nothing? Is John—

Yes. He's still here. No longer gnawing on his pencil like a disconsolate rabbit; no, by the sound of it, he's moved on to staring bleakly at something. Possibly Sherlock. It's ridiculous.

It would be  _so easy_  to leap off the couch, throwing the laptop down and—no. Carefully closing it—he's careful now—and setting it on the table, which quite spoils the effect of leaping to his feet. Surely the point is to dispel ennui with sudden, violent motion. And then what?

 _And then what?_  There is nothing to  _do._  Not if he's bound,  _and he is_ , not to mention the letter.

Fine.

_Fine._

_You know what would make this better,_  begins the hateful, insidious voice he's been forcibly disregarding for weeks.  _You could go upstairs and—_

Absolutely  _not._ He has made it this long. He hasn't even searched. Somewhere along the way, that became unnecessary. It _had to_ become unnecessary.

Because, and this thought brings another tactile ghost with it, he is never going to find himself caught beneath John's incredulous and disapproving glare again with John's fingers stabbing at his arm like an accusatory scalpel.

Like a needle.

One of the things John had said That Day, long after Sherlock had composed himself (discordantly) was this:

 _Believing you were dead was one of the worst things I've ever experienced. Or I thought so, but then I realised it was worse to know that you weren't dead, but had very nearly fucked it all up anyway. Perhaps I might never have known, and it wouldn't have mattered. But I_ do  _know now. If you ever do something like that again—_

 _You'll do_ what?

 _If you ever do something like that again, then you might as well be dead, Sherlock, because I will go. I will leave, and you won't ever see me again. Because—no, just_ listen.  _Because you will continue to do dangerous things, and you will take risks, and possibly even get shot or stabbed or worse. But I'll be damned if you die with a fucking needle in your arm, or because you're so high that it never occurs to you to make a proper plan before you sit down and play cards with a man who's got a flat full of guns and a reason to kill you._

On the whole, it was very nearly easy to agree to what John wanted. He did this, and very carefully did  _not_  say,  _I know. I've already worked that out myself. I_ will  _never do it again, so long as—_ because setting conditions isn't fair. 

Sherlock had already said it, or something like it, earlier, and while it was true (is true),  _true_  isn't  _good._  Not when it comes to this.

John is essential, in a way that Sherlock very decidedly is not.

It's quiet.

It's hateful.

His jaw aches.

* * *

"This would all be so much easier without the Olympics," John says. He has surprised them both by abruptly snapping his pencil in two against the edge of the table.

Sherlock, who had been staring blindly at an unchanging screen for the better part of an hour, sits up, closes John's laptop with exaggerated care, swivels into a sitting position, and turns to look at him.

"Having to pretend that you're not here, I mean."

Mycroft made it perfectly clear that the inevitably dramatic reappearance of his brother would not be welcomed until the Games were over. Soothing the public (and the international sporting community) after the Arch Bombing was difficult enough. While the Yard can now indisputably prove that Richard Brook was a fabrication, that Sherlock wasn't a fraud or a criminal, there are bound to be awkward questions. The media will have to be negotiated very carefully, and so, for that matter, will the Yard.

Lestrade still doesn't know.

"Maybe we could find you something real to do," John suggests, a bit feebly. "In a quiet sort of way."

"I  _am_  trying to keep myself occupied."

"It's not working, is it?"

"Not much, no." Sherlock tilts his head back and rubs at his jaw. "Anything in the paper?"

"It's all about the Games."

Sherlock rolls his eyes.

"I suppose we  _could_ actually watch them. I never really have before, you know," John offers, spinning one half of the broken pencil on the table. He wonders when they started making them out of compressed sawdust instead of proper wood.

"Honestly, John.  _Sport?"_  Sherlock makes it sound like a particularly uninteresting disease.

The pencil half leaps away into the kitchen as if launched from a trebuchet. "Some of the events are quite dangerous, Sherlock. Javelins. Horses. Fencing. Whitewater. Gymnastics. Anything could happen."

"Tedious media masturbation. Obsession over pointless political distinctions. Nationalism. Sentimentality."

"You're not intrigued by bitter international rivalry? Someone usually cheats, I believe. Or maybe someone will defect. Both Koreas are competing."

"Dull. Obvious."

"Well, I can hardly expect you to take interest in the extremely fit women's beach volleyball teams..."

Sherlock snorts at this, which was very much John's intention.

"We should probably watch the opening ceremonies with Mrs. Hudson, though. She'd like that. I expect  _you'll_  hate it, but at least you can shout at the television. There'll be pop music and absurd national costumes and potentially disastrous special effects."

"Invite Mycroft. He can bore you with each participant country's GNP as the teams go by."

"No thanks. Okay then, how about this: Open flame. Torches. Surely that has potential!"

"I doubt it. I'm sure they've been rehearsing for weeks."  _Potential_  accidents are not enough to pique the man's interest, it seems. "At best, one of the badminton team might stuff a shuttlecock down another athlete's throat. I imagine it's a temptation."

"I'm surprised you knew that was an Olympic sport.  _I_  didn't even know that until this week."

"Apparently it is. God knows why."

"I suppose it's slightly more athletic than some of the other things," John muses. "Shooting an air rifle never struck me as particularly Olympic. I mean, there's skill involved, but...still." He shrugs.

"I'm reasonably certain the Greeks of antiquity didn't play beach volleyball, either. Whatever  _that_ is."

"Yeah. Well. I'm still a bit surprised you're familiar with any of the events. Not exactly the sort of thing you tend to bother with."

"I glanced at the timetable," Sherlock says mildly.

"Why?"

"I was bored. It's information." He smiles, ever-so-slightly, and adds, "And in any case, if we're very lucky, there really  _will_  be a murder."


	3. Coming in First

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A swimmer is murdered. A breakfast is lightly damaged. Lestrade questions an American.

Matthew Burke is stumbling with exhaustion when he finally makes his way back to the room he shares with his team mate. He's hoping Jack will be asleep, because he doesn't particularly want to listen to another rundown of Jack's triumph and his own failure. They'd trained together for years, and at one time, Matt might have counted them friends, but that's a distant memory now. Somewhere around the time Jack won his first gold medal, things began sliding downhill.

Now he carefully negotiates the hallway, the lock, and the door handle in silence. Inside, it is dark. He can't even hear his roommate's trademark whistling snore. Maybe he isn't there.

He really shouldn't, but he's thinking he'll just manage to slide into bed without turning on the lights, without alerting a possibly-resident Jack to his presence at all. He slips off his flip-flops and pulls off his jacket. He's carefully edging his way around the bed when his bare toes encounter something unexpected on the floor. It feels like—it might be—a  _hand._

Matt suppresses the memory of reaching out his own hand to the other man as the scores came in, as Jack accepted congratulations from the Frenchman in the next lane. Jack had turned his reflective hematite goggled gaze towards him, and then past him, as if Matt wasn't even there. Jack had confessed earlier that week as they stood together in the airport, abuzz with nerves, "I'm not sure I'm going to do it this time, Matt," but then proceeded to win gold by a ridiculous margin anyway as if he had never admitted to weakness, to humanity.

Jack, who always used to conclude the worst team practices by saying, "We're all in this together," and then stopped. Jack who said he was mostly in it for the challenge while they were both swimming the same times, but who improved and started skipping training for photo shoots and interviews. Jack, who laughed at Matt and the others for their steadfast insistence upon routine, accountability, and endless training. Jack, who was caught with pot in his bag six months ago and made it here anyway. Jack, who is, apparently, lying on the floor now instead of in his bed.

Matt pokes at him, deliberately this time, but he doesn't make a sound, so he switches on the light.

Jack is stretched out on his back, long limbs splayed out like a starfish, huge feet pointed towards the ceiling. He seems uncharacteristically pale. Matthew studies the Olympic rings tattooed on his hairless chest as if he's about to be quizzed on them, and eventually dares to look at his face.

Jack always looks strange while sleeping. In repose, the irregularity of his features, the absurd length of his face, become more apparent. His recent decision to start etching stars and stripes into his dishwater buzz cut only makes him look weirder. Yet somehow, with his brilliantly green eyes open, with his face in constant, manic motion, no one ever seems to notice that the divine sculptor's chisel had slipped in carving out Jack Cutter's face.

His eyes  _are_  open now, but Matt suddenly knows that he isn't seeing anything: that he can't see anything.

Matt bends down to touch his bare calf, which seems somehow less personal than the other options, and it's cold.

He straightens up again, dizzy with the surge of blood through his own depleted body, and makes his way carefully to the door, to the hallway.

Nothing in his life has prepared him for the words he's going to have to say.

* * *

The dream begins with a nice breakfast. Truth be told, it is probably nicer than the reality ever was. It helps that the light is golden, birds are singing, and no one is arguing.

John swings his feet under his chair—he is too small to reach the floor with them—and carefully scrubs a toast soldier through a trail of egg. The plate is a very vivid blue, and has, for some reason, a duck painted on it.

 _I don't see why they should have to burn them,_ his mother says, distant at the other end of the table, and that's when he notices the smell.

Something  _is_  burning.

John's subconscious takes this opportunity to shatter the cheerfully yellow curtained window and fill the air with dust and whistling shells before he snaps into wakefulness with a gasp.

...only to become aware, slowly, that the flat does, indeed, smell of equal parts breakfast and burning.

221B is no stranger to smoke or early-morning misadventures involving the kitchen. The scent drifting up the stairs should hardly come as a surprise. Sherlock had spent the previous night alternately pacing and perusing the internet on John's laptop. John was reasonably certain he'd never actually gone to bed, which was almost reassuring in its echo of times past, although he was still uncharacteristically quiet about whatever he was doing.

John firmly wills his heart rate to slow and then climbs out of bed. He follows a series of clanking sounds down the stairs and into the kitchen.

There, he finds Sherlock with his dressing gown sleeves rolled to the elbows, presiding over a steaming pot with metal tongs in one hand and a fish slice in the other. "What on earth are you doing?" John asks.

Without turning, Sherlock holds up the fish slice hand and says, "Wait." He plunges the unlikely combination of utensils into the pot and removes first one, and then another tea cup from what appears to be boiling water. After peering gravely into them, he seems satisfied with what he sees there, for he switches the cooker off and says to John, "You might make us some toast. I had done, only I burnt it."

It is only then that John notices the small collection of plates (and another pot) on the kitchen table. The pot is brimming with an unidentifiable gelatinous substance, but two of the plates clearly contain—

"Poached eggs?"

"I think so, yes." Sherlock comes to stand beside John, frowning down into the pot full of eggy tentacles. "That was the Vortex Method," he remarks ruefully. "Might have worked, but there was a distraction during a critical point in the process."

"The toast burning."

"Precisely."

"Sometimes it sticks," John says kindly, but upon seeing the charred remains protruding from the chromed instrument of their doom, he adds, "Mind you, if you switch it to five, it  _always_  burns."

"Does it?" Sherlock is (miraculously!) scouring pots, so his flatmate removes the ruined slices and sets about preparing new toast without further comment.

The teacup eggs are the best ones. They're perfect, in fact. John swabs the last of the yolk from his plate with a bit of buttery toast and heaves an expansive sigh. "Well. That was an unexpected start to the day."

The cook has made very little progress with his own egg. Perched on his chair like a lanky gargoyle, he balances his second cup of coffee on his flanneled knees and gazes at his plate as if it has betrayed him.

"Didn't you like yours, then? I thought they were rather good."

Sherlock wrinkles his nose. "I find the texture unpleasantly... _springy_. You can have mine, if you like." He sets his cup down and pushes the plate across the table. He has eaten the toast, at least.

"Were you researching cookery on my laptop all night?"

"Among other things."

"That's a bit disturbing."

"It is." Sherlock wraps his arms around his knees gloomily, locking his fingers together as if to prevent himself from disintegrating with restlessness. "I don't think I can stand this tedium much longer, John. I. Am. Losing. My. Mind."

"Clearly," John agrees, through a mouthful of soggy egg. He swallows and suggests, not for the first time, "We could ask your brother to return some of your things, if it would help. Honestly, I don't understand why you haven't done that already."

"It wouldn't be enough." Sherlock fixes his pale eyes on his flatmate, and adds, shrewdly, "You're not exactly scintillated by this caged existence, yourself."

"Well. No." John runs his tongue over his teeth and carefully refrains from glancing at the letter he's tucked under a wooden bowl of overripe tomatoes.

"Perhaps you'd better accept the offer, then." Sherlock's tone is bored, but his expression is not. It's fierce, and perhaps a bit desperate.

"The...oh." John isn't surprised he knows; he is surprised by the length of time it has taken Sherlock to  _mention_  that he knows. There's no point is dissembling, then. "The NHS position."

"It's what you want, isn't it?"

"Yes. But it's all a bit Faustian. I'm not sure it's worth owing Mycroft a favour. I should think you, of all people, would agree."

But he doesn't. "Don't be ridiculous, John. The  _favour,"_  and here Sherlock twists his lips in contempt, "has already been done."

"That's just as bad. I will not accept pay for being...for acting as your handler," John says.

"Think about it. The position is real. Your qualifications are valid. There's no point in making this into an ethical dilemma."

"Isn't there?" John asks. "Because I—"

"The offer is genuine, and I suggest you accept it," Sherlock cuts in, dismissively. He surges to his feet and heads off to his bedroom in a swirl of dressing gown. "There's no such thing as a soul, and if there were, my brother wouldn't know the first thing to do with one. Yours, least of all."

* * *

Gregory Lestrade is no stranger to high-profile investigations, but this is one he could definitely do without.  _Why does it have to be a bloody Olympic athlete? I'd sooner have an MP with a knife in his back. That, I know how to handle._

Matthew Burke, the twenty-four year old American seated across from him, is clearly bewildered and in shock, despite having discovered the body thirteen hours before.  _Probably hasn't slept,_  Greg thinks.  _How could he?_

"So you weren't exactly mates," he begins, fixing what he hopes is a sympathetic gaze on the Olympian swimmer.

Matthew blinks at him. "Mates?"

"Sorry. You don't say that in the States, do you? I meant, you weren't friends."

"Oh! No. We weren't. No." The young man's cocoa-coloured fingers tighten around his plastic water bottle, and he amends, "We were, once. But...it's competition, you know? Some people become successful and they're still who they were before. Not Jack. It all kind of went to his head."

"So...Would you say that he was a bit unpopular with the others, then?"

"I..." Matthew is clearly caught between the desire to be helpful and a lingering sense of propriety. "I guess so... He didn't hang out with us anymore. He was pretty rude to the coaches. And to the other swimmers. There's a girl on our team who—" He stops himself, as if afraid of betrayal. "Does this mean you think he was murdered? Wasn't it just his heart or something?"

"We have to ask," Greg says, reassuringly. "We're still awaiting reports from Toxicology."

"Oh, shit. You don't think _I_...I mean, I  _didn't_  like him, but I would never..." The American swimmer looks distinctly panicked now.

"This is routine, Matthew." Greg sighs and tilts his chair back against the wall. "That girl you mentioned...?"

"Christine. Our coach had us partnered up with the women's team for training. She's really good, you know? But Jack was pretty awful to her." Matthew frowns. "He, uh, he was always hitting on her. And she has a boyfriend."

The light on Greg's telephone flickers into sudden, frenetic activity, but he ignores it.

"Go on."

"He wouldn't leave her alone. Some of us... Well, we complained to the coach and they swapped our training partners. She's with me now. Anyway. She told me Jack threatened her after that. He told her he'd make sure she got bumped off the team. Which was really dumb, because he's the one who started it. If anyone got bumped, it should have been Jack."

Greg raises an eyebrow. "And was he?"

"No. They said they'd suspend him, but he... Jack was the best. They weren't really going to risk losing him. Even after he was caught smoking weed." He sighs. Bitterly, Greg thinks. "I talked to him about it, and he said he was under a lot of pressure. Like that was an excuse? But in the end, he apologised. So they let him keep going."

"Hmm." Greg's telephone light is still flashing, and a chat window has popped up on his computer screen. He glances at it, then reads it again, and groans faintly.

 **SDonovan:**   **Answer your bloody phone!**

**SDonovan: We've got another one.**

**SDonovan: Gymnastics coach.**


	4. Want to See Some More?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lestrade receives an unexpected visit...

The hotel room is cramped, but he doesn't need more than this. Stretched out on the dingy bedspread with his shoes on— _and_   _what would your mother say to that?_ —he plots a course for the day using the map of London on his smartphone. The lightbulb over the bed is going. Its flicker is bad enough that he switches it off and makes do with the dim grey light seeping in from the tiny window that looks out over a dismal gravelled rooftop.

He's managed to acquire a bit of a cold, possibly due to the wind on the ferry and the subsequent time he spent packed in amongst the other passengers on the train to London. There's a crumpled tea bag and a little sleeve of sugar sharing a shelf with a battered cup and a beige plastic kettle. He puts the water on and rummages through his bag for the cheap souvenir shirt he bought in one of the newsagents near Paddington. Garish it may be, but it's also a decent piece of camouflage in a city full of tourists. It will not do to stand out as something other than ordinary.

"Not at all ordinary," he hums to himself, soft voice lost in the din of car horns and shouts in the street below. "Nothing like ordinary at all."

The tea isn't any good, but then he hadn't expected it to be. It is hot. It is liquid. It will sustain him.

"Time to do it again," he whispers, and slips away, unremarked, into the city outside.

* * *

Lestrade hasn't slept for two days, and he cannot help but wonder when psychosis will set in. "Oh. That'd be now," he mutters. He has just caught sight of the tall man in an expensively neutral grey suit, fist poised to knock politely at the frame of his open door.

"Detective Inspector," he intones smoothly, his voice immediately setting the other man's teeth on edge. "May I?"

"Yeah. All right," Greg says gruffly, and waves Mycroft Holmes into the chair opposite his desk.

There's a sheaf of reports on the chair, but Mycroft whisks it aside and deposits it neatly on the DI's desk before folding himself down into the seat, legs crossed neatly at the ankle. "So  _good_  to see you again," he says, and Greg is expecting a supercilious almost-smile, but it never arrives. Is that more or less disturbing? He's not sure.

This day will not be improved by the sudden addition of a Holmes.  _The wrong Holmes,_ Greg amends, and feels the familiar, almost desperate blankness that typically descends with thoughts of the dead consulting detective. He looks at his feet, realises they are on the desk, and decides they'd be better on the floor.

"Remain as you are," Mycroft says, pointing his ever-present umbrella at the desk, before hooking it over the armrest. He folds his hands together and looks expectantly at the other man, as if  _he's_  been called here, as if he hadn't turned up unexpectedly for some unfathomable, possibly sinister reason of his own.

"Yeah. Okay." Greg squares his jaw and adds, "Look. If this is about your brother, everything has been sorted now. Well. I'm sure you know that. We're going to—"

He stops, puzzled, because Mycroft is smiling now, and it's not the usual impersonally tight variety. Greg shakes his head a little, and ploughs onward. "We'll let the public know, but just now, there's a bit of a nightmare on, and we need to wait until we've resolved it."

"The murdered athletes," Mycroft suggests, and holds up an admonitory hand, the one wearing the understated wedding band. "Yes, of course. They were murdered, weren't they?"

"Well, we..."

"Jack Cutter, the American swimmer: needle mark between the toes, I believe. Liu Jie, the Chinese women's gymnastics trainer: needle mark in her left inner arm. Werner Achen, the German fencer: also between the toes. The signs point to these injections being self-administered. It may be murder, nonetheless."

Greg's mouth is hanging open, and he closes it with a snap. "You've done your homework, haven't you."

"Interesting that no one has managed to identify the substance, though, isn't it?"

"We're still doing tests. They all died from sudden heart failure. Looks like a performance enhancer gone wrong. Although...The Chinese coach throws a spanner into that theory."

"Ah, Detective Inspector. Surely  _any_  death can be described as a sudden heart failure."

Greg rolls his eyes. "Right. Yeah. The point is, we're going to stop this. We've cautioned the athletes—"

"And much good it may do you. There are already firm rules in place about chemical enhancement. I think you'll find that being stripped of a medal for misconduct is a stronger deterrent than death for these men and women. Yet they do seem to be dying, don't they?"

"We'll find how it's getting in, and stop it."

"I certainly hope so. The British nation has suffered enough high-profile humiliation this year."

Greg has had more than enough micromanagement from the Chief Superintendent. He doesn't need this from a government spook—or whatever he is—as well. "That some kind of a threat?" he asks, keeping his tone casual.

Mycroft laughs. "A threat? Certainly not." He leans forward and says softly, "I have come to offer you some assistance. Is that unwelcome?"

"Er. No. Fine. Okay." Is Mycroft going to feed the Yard restricted information? Deduce something from thin air like his brother? Greg is more than aware of the similarities between the two men. Both have— _had—_ the ability to make him feel like he's being dissected on the spot. This one is just a bit more...polished. Sherlock would have been rude, but Sherlock would have gotten to the point by now. "So, you...?"

"Me? Goodness, no." Mycroft reaches behind him with one long arm and shuts the office door, rather abruptly. This done, he leans forward and places his hands on the DI's desk.

Greg starts, and immediately takes his feet off the desk. Only he's hyperextended his right knee while they were up there, and now he has to strike it repeatedly with his palm to restore the circulation.  _You're getting too old for this,_ he thinks. "Bollocks" is what he says.

Mycroft raises an eyebrow. "I'm sorry?"

"I—Never mind." Greg reaches for his coffee, cold now despite the polystyrene cup, and takes a healthy swig. "So. What're you going to pull out of your hat, then?"

Mycroft hesitates, and then he says, slowly, "About my brother..."

Between gruesome murders, late nights, bad coffee, worse food, and harsh cigarettes, Greg Lestrade practically lives on antacids. But they're no match for the shock of the cold white words:  _He's not dead._

As he heaves over the wastepaper basket, his flush of shame is compounded by the sudden appearance of a paper cup filled with water. He looks up and sees nothing but concern on Mycroft's face.

"I thought it would be best if I told you first."

* * *

Once, in another life, John Watson had briefly, mistakenly, thought he'd caught a glimpse of Sherlock Holmes in love. Now, as he watches his flatmate running famished fingers over the weathered varnish of his violin, he realises once again that Irene Adler was probably something else altogether. The man is positively devouring the instrument with his eyes; in fact, John wouldn't be surprised to see him  _kiss_  the damned thing as he lowers his head over the strings.

So it comes as a surprise when, rather than reaching for the bow, he gently returns it to its case and snaps it shut. The sound is final, almost brutal in the silence of the flat.

"It's, ah... All right then?" John ventures, blinking in perplexed concern.

 _"It's_  fine," Sherlock says. "Better than I left it. Mycroft's taken it to the luthier. Smug bastard," he adds, but without much venom. He sighs, and sinks into his chair, unfocussed eyes skipping over the sea of boxes that have recently appeared in their living room.

Suddenly, John knows what the problem is. He clears his throat, a bit awkwardly, and says, "There are... Exercises and things. For your shoulder, I mean."

"I'm aware of that."

"Had to do them myself, you know."

Sherlock opens his mouth as if to utter a sharp retort and then closes it again. He touches his clavicle fleetingly and nods. "Yes. I imagine you did."

John thinks,  _He's trying_ , _he really is._ And it's not easy, but he manages a smile and says brightly, "I'll make us some tea."

Sherlock is still in his chair when he returns. John presses a mug into his hands, and steps back to survey the cartons. They've all been neatly labelled, and not by a Holmesian hand. Idly, he wonders whether they were packed by Mycroft's assistant.  _Wonder if she'll go through_ my _things after I die._ He shudders briefly at the thought, and glances back at his flatmate. "We should really—"

"For God's sake, John. Don't look like a maiden aunt. It's fine. Open a few, if it will make you twitch less."

"You've got nothing to hide, then?" John asks with a startled laugh, because Sherlock is rather territorial about his things, and then he stops.  _Oh, but you did. And I gave it away...to your self-proclaimed archenemy._

He is seized with an urge to confess, and has very nearly opened his mouth to begin, when something else catches his eye. "I've found your skull," he says, and he tears open the cardboard flaps as if it's Christmas. "Your other friend."

It grins up at him from a bed of socks, and as he reaches in to retrieve it, his fingers brush against a plastic dry cleaning bag folded underneath. Of course. _Skull. Socks. Winter Things._ Carefully, he sets the skull on the table in front of its owner, and steels himself for what lies beneath.

Silly, really. It's just a coat, and now it is clean. No blood there. Only well-worn dark tweed, a bit of red thread, and an absurd number of buttons. He lifts the slippery, surprisingly heavy parcel out without a word, and deposits it in Sherlock's lap. If his hand slips a little, if it brushes against his friend's arm in doing so, it is only a tiny ritual of personal reassurance. He doesn't think the other man notices.

Sherlock tears away the plastic with eager hands and immediately winces. "It smells all wrong," he remarks plaintively. "He didn't—No. It is mine. He's only gone and had it cleaned."

"A few crime scenes should take care of that," John says, and then falters. "Sorry."

Sherlock smiles a little. "Don't be." He touches the skull lightly between the eyes with one long finger and adds, cryptically, "He never does anything without a reason."

"Well. It was a bit...covered in human blood." John swallows.

"What? No. Look around you, John. I meant all of this." Sherlock waves his hand towards the boxes, and then refolds the coat over the back of his chair. "I think... Yes. All this was just the vanguard. We can expect a visit from Mycroft next." He gets to his feet, and yawns. "I suppose I'd better put some proper clothes on."

John laughs. "Oh, I don't know. You could wrap up in a bed sheet. Although you'd better keep your pyjamas on underneath this time. I think it's raining."

Sherlock snorts, and then frowns. "I suppose he's also stolen our ashtray back. He would."

"I'll be awfully disappointed if he has. It was so distinctly  _regal."_

John is still smiling as he clears away the remains of the garment bag. On impulse, he sniffs at the coat. It's a bit harsh, a bit chemical. No hint of wet dog, of smoke, of coffee, or antiseptic.

The car arrives fifteen minutes later. Sherlock is neatly dressed, and John has located his phone in among the sofa cushions. The consulting detective spins about the room as if he's forgotten something, and then he seizes his coat. It  _is_  raining, after all.

"Coming?" he asks, thrusting his arms into the sleeves, eyes gleaming with excitement.

"Oh  _God,_  yes," John says, and does his best not to tumble down the stairs. Someone's probably done a murder, and it's fantastic.

 

 


	5. Excursive

He's sprinting through the rain, and it feels incredible. It's certainty and freedom and mischief threading like fire through his veins. He has to slow himself a little, focussing on the sodden squish of water in his shoes, each pavement stone a unit of measurement beneath his feet.

It will not do to be seen as anything other than this: a man out for a run in the rain. It's healthful exercise, he thinks, and he laughs a little at the thought as he approaches the deserted alley.  _That's all it is, Officer. I'm just a simple tourist, out for a run. No harm in that, is there?_

Now it looms ahead of him, slick concrete higher than his head. Heart pounding, he abandons all pretence and throws himself at the wall, fast as he can. No one sees him now, and if they do? They'll never catch him.

* * *

Mycroft is waiting for them in the car. John watches his eyes slide over his brother, lingering for a moment on the familiar coat before he nods and says, "Good."

 _Is it?_  John thinks, but Sherlock is already folding himself into the car, positively vibrating with excitement. "Not the Yard?" he asks, as John slides into the leather seat beside him.

"No. Under the circumstances, I thought it best to avoid the media. They've established quite an encampment there."

Sherlock nods. "Yet you've decided to let me out of my kennel ahead of schedule. This  _is_ interesting."

"I'd still appreciate it if you exercised the utmost discretion," Mycroft says.

The car is moving by now, and John cannot help but feel that he's missed something incredibly vital. "Sorry, but where exactly are we going?" His own anticipation has been dampened slightly. He has a sense that, once again, the Holmes brothers have left him in the dark.

"That's not important."

"Which means you're not going to say. Right. Who are we going to see, then?"

"Detective Inspector Lestrade."

"Does he know?" John asks, waving a hand towards Sherlock, whose hungry eyes are fixed on the streets of his city as they rush past the tinted window.

Mycroft sighs and folds his hands primly together over one knee. "I have informed him."

 _Better you than me,_  John thinks. He's considered starting that conversation with Greg a thousand times, but always falters when it comes to the actual words. Now Mycroft has done it for him. Sometimes he wonders what it would have been like to see Sherlock  _not dead_  without any warning, without the buffer of adrenaline and necessity. Perhaps Mycroft did him a kindness.

"Is it about that dead swimmer?" he asks, after a long silence, because Sherlock, as usual, already seems to know everything. This is somewhat surprising, because he'd declared the Games boring not long after suffering through the televised opening ceremonies. Reports of Jack Cutter's death had sparked a momentary interest in him, but after shouting at the newsreaders' endless speculations and enduring a mawkish tribute programme, he'd enforced a brief media blackout and taken up culinary research instead.

"There have been three deaths now, but yes. It is."

Sherlock turns away from his intense appraisal of London and raises an eyebrow. "Three. Isn't  _that_  embarrassing."

"Rather worse than that. The Games are now perilously close to cancellation. My time has become a precious commodity."

 _What a shame you've wasted some of it falsifying a job application,_  John thinks fleetingly, but instead he asks, "Were all of the murder victims athletes?"

"Two. Jack Cutter, and a German fencer." Mycroft does not contradict his use of the term "murder."

"But the third was not," Sherlock states, all confidence. "Still someone connected with the Games, though."

"A Chinese gymnastics coach," Mycroft affirms. "Her death has only added to the general confusion."

"Because...?" John prompts, wishing someone would get to the point.

"It's obvious." When John meets this with a questioning look, Sherlock continues. "Unexpected heart failure following competition? I trust the German _did_ die after his event? Of course he did. Clearly, use of a performance enhancing drug is indicated."

"Ah. Something like EPO? So there's a new substance that isn't coming out in the tests, and it's dangerous?" John asks, surprised Sherlock hasn't already dismissed this as predictably dull.

"Mmm," he hums in the affirmative. "But did the German win his match, I wonder?" Sherlock does look interested, almost pleased. A year ago, he probably would have told his brother to sort this himself. Now, he looks like a child who has been promised a trip to the zoo.  _On second thought, make that a particularly horrifying medical museum,_ John amends. He can't quite imagine Sherlock waxing enthusiastic over polar bears.

"He did not," Mycroft contributes. "He was bested by a Korean."

"So. One top seeded athlete. One who was not, and who performed accordingly. Finally, a coach associated with a rather successful gymnastics team." His eyes narrow speculatively.

"Why would a _coach_ take a drug meant to enhance athletic performance?" John wonders.

"Why, indeed." Sherlock rubs absently at his collar, as if he mourns the loss of his scarf. It could be in a box, but it suddenly occurs to his friend that it might have been irretrievably ruined. The blood.

"The coach's own daughter is a member of the team," Mycroft interjects smoothly. They have arrived in front of a sad-looking building with a large and weathered _Offices To Let_ banner tethered to the façade. "Ah. This is where I leave you."

* * *

It seems they are to meet in an office on the fifth floor. Without spoken agreement, they use the stairs, rather than the lift. John finds himself racing to keep up with Sherlock, who takes the steps two at a time, coat billowing out behind him.

"Wait," John says, catching at one tweed sleeve as they arrive on the final landing. Sherlock is reaching for the heavy, institutional-beige door.

"What?"

"Just...go easy."

Sherlock's brow furrows. "On Lestrade."

"Yes."

"Because he believed I was dead?"

"Yes. I know Mycroft told him, but it's... It's bound to be a bit of a shock."

The consulting detective gazes back at him for a moment, lips parted as if to speak, and then nods, silently. He pulls the door handle, and John belatedly realises that Sherlock has moved aside and is holding it open for him to go first.  _I suppose I've just set myself up for this,_  he thinks, and steps out into the hallway.

The office they're seeking is quite close, the door unlabelled except for the number. John contemplates knocking, a bit disconcerted by Sherlock looming just behind him, but ultimately opts to enter without fanfare. There's a barren looking reception desk, and behind it, a modest number of dove-coloured cubicles in a very large space littered with exposed cables and disassembled furniture.

"Ah...Hello?" John says, his voice echoing oddly in the void.

"Back here," a familiar voice calls, and they round the corner, following the sound.

Greg Lestrade is seated at an ugly flat pack desk, a neat stack of folders assembled before him on the chipped imitation oak surface. He looks awful, eyes bagged and complexion grey beneath his summer tan.

"Greg," John greets him awkwardly, all-too aware of the tall dark silence at his back.

The DI nods, one hand braced against the desk, and says, roughly, "Yeah." His eyes run over Sherlock and back again.

John feels caught outside of time as the two men regard one another, Sherlock scanning for detail, the DI establishing his reality. It is, he thinks, to Greg's credit that he says, at last, "All right."

Sherlock makes a noncommittal sound—he is not terribly conversant in the language of  _all right_ , after all—and assembles himself in one of the two chairs opposite the desk. "You needed me. I'm here."

Lestrade shakes his head. "So you are. And we'll talk about _that_ later. At the moment, though, yes. I have a problem."

Reassured that there will not be an explosive event in the immediate future, John seats himself in the remaining chair. One of the casters seems to be damaged, and he lurches slightly upon descent.

"What've you got?" Sherlock asks, fingers stretching eagerly towards the folders.

Lestrade flattens his own hand over them possessively. "What do you already know?"

There is still an air of tension in the room, and John supposes it's inevitable. Sherlock recites the known facts of the case quickly, and can't entirely suppress his impatience. His delivery is, however, unusually free from sarcasm or jibes at the Yard's expense.

The DI listens, nodding and occasionally contributing unpublicised tidbits of data where appropriate: estimated time of death, location, and the like. When Sherlock is finished, he says, "I know it seems like a fairly open-and-shut case of athletic doping, but it isn't, is it?"

"No," Sherlock agrees, and reaches for the folders again. This time, Lestrade capitulates and pushes them across the desk. There are three: one for each victim.

"How's your German?" Lestrade asks, as John edges his chair closer, ripping the broken caster over the carpet in awkward starts.

 _"Ausreichend."_ Sherlock flips through the contents of the first folder, stops at a photograph of Jack Cutter's body for a moment, and then sets the folder down again with the ghost of a smirk.

"What?" John asks, but Sherlock is now poring over the scan of a crumpled handwritten note enclosed in Werner Achen's folder. German. Of course.

"Ah. Interesting." He glances at John and says, "You should be able to get something out of  _this_  one."

"I...okay." He gives up the chair as a bad job, and stands to accept the letter. "I don't  _know_  German," he begins, but then he stops, studying the handwriting. He feels an irrational surge of pride in himself as he ventures, "Oh. Well, I  _think_ he might have been left-handed."

"Precisely." He hands the page to John, eagerly leafing forwards to the photographs.

_Ich habe etwas getan, das vielleicht sehr unklug war. Je mehr ich darüber nachdenke, desto klarer wird mir, dass ich es nicht hätte tun sollen. Es ist mir das Wichtigste im Leben geworden, und das sollte es nicht sein. Das hättest Du sein müssen. Gewinnen ist nicht wirklich wichtig, oder?_

_Vielleicht passiert nichts, und mit mir wird alles gut. Mit uns wird alles gut, und dann zerreiße ich das hier. Aber wenn nicht... wenn mir irgendetwas zustößt, verzeih mir bitte. Ich liebe Dich._

_-Werner_

"So...this letter. Was this written to his wife, or a girlfriend?"

"Wife," Lestrade interjects. "We found it folded up inside his shaving kit."

"Sorry, the only bit I can pick out is that he loved her. Or someone," John says. "So. What does it say?"

Sherlock looks up from the post-mortem photograph he's studying. "Ah. He...says he is apologetic because he has done something that might have been stupid. He was obsessed with winning, and that was wrong; his wife was more important. He says that possibly nothing will happen, that things will be fine..." He stops, and corrects himself. "No. Between  _them,_ everything will be fine, and if so, then he'll simply tear it up. But if not, he begs forgiveness. And yes, he does say, 'I love you.' Typical melodrama."

"Did he fence left-handed?" John asks.

"No. And it's a pity.  _That_  might have improved his performance. It's clear from his musculature that he did not." Sherlock shuts the folder and opens the third. "So. Two people living lies. What's next, I wonder?"

"What do you mean?" Lestrade asks, leaning forward. "Assuming you're talking about Werner Achen's dominant hand...and I'm not sure why that really matters. You said two. What was Jack Cutter lying about?"

But Sherlock isn't listening. He's engrossed in the final folder. "I'd like to talk to the daughter."

Lestrade shakes his head. "Jack Cutter," he persists.

Sherlock raises an eyebrow. "Almost certainly irrelevant. Liu Jie's  _daughter,_  on the other hand, might be important."

"You implied he lied about something. What?"

"Did I?" One corner of his mouth turns up, slightly. "Sorry. It would be more accurate to say he lied about almost  _everything."_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I must offer MASSIVE thanks to WhenISayFriend: First, for helping me with the German for Werner Achen's note, but secondly, and most importantly, for helping me laugh when I needed to.


	6. Here Comes the Sun

Sherlock's good temper doesn't last for very long. They're back at Baker Street now, and he's sprawled on the sofa, staring at the ceiling with his head tilted at an odd angle, as if he's hoping to be able to see around a metaphorical corner. Lestrade's folders are neatly stacked on his chest, and his fingers hover, twitching, just above them. They never quite manage to make contact. It's excruciating to behold.

John is bunched up in his chair with his laptop, not really looking at an email from Harry. Somehow, this day had been derailed, and it's a shame because it had started off so well. Despite the stack of paperwork sliding incrementally further down the consulting detective's chest with every dramatic sigh, they've got very little information to go on. Worse yet, it doesn't look as if they'll be able to visit a crime scene any time soon. Interviews can be arranged, and eventually they will be, but apparently Lestrade's arrangement with Mycroft did not extend to letting them get anywhere near the public.

He isn't terribly surprised when a folder hits the wall, releasing a modest avalanche of A4 in its wake. It's almost glorious the way the next projectile folder bounces off the wall and then slides into one of Sherlock's many boxes with most of its contents intact. "I think you've made a possible goal there," John ventures, "only I'm not certain about the scoring methods for folder flinging."

There is an explosive snort from the sofa, and a flurry of limbs as Sherlock rotates to assume a position virtually identical to the one he'd been lying in before, only this time with his feet hooked over the opposing arm rest. He is slightly impeded in this by the bulk of his coat, which he hadn't bothered to remove. Once he is arranged to his satisfaction, he begins running his fingers slowly and repeatedly over the points of his shirt collar as if he's seriously considering self-strangulation. After a moment, he addresses the ceiling. "Suppose you wanted to sneak into the Olympic Village. How would you go about it?"

John shuts his laptop. "You mean, if I were planning to sabotage the Games?"

"No, just generally," Sherlock grates between clenched teeth, and presses his face into his own contorted woollen shoulder. John is still working out whether his answer was intended sarcastically, when he slams his head back against the cushion and adds, "It's no good asking for my help if I'm not allowed to see anything that matters!"

And of course, this is perfectly true.

John opens his laptop and reads an enlightening (if somewhat salacious) article detailing popular forms of recreation in the Olympic Village. It does not contain any helpful information about sneaking into the grounds, although it does make him want to steal another peek at the women's volleyball teams. Resisting this impulse, he virtuously reads two separate articles describing Jack Cutter in lengthy and stunningly contradictory terms: introvert/extrovert; striking/hideous; beloved/despised; driven/druggie. He is momentarily sidetracked by another article describing pre-competition rituals and nervous tics. While the swimmer is mentioned here as well, it doesn't explain Sherlock's cryptic remarks about the man. Finally, he gives in to curiosity and says, "So. What were you implying about Jack Cutter?"

Rather than insisting that this information is not terribly pertinent to the case, as he had done with Lestrade, Sherlock surprises John by immediately heaving himself into an upright position. He fixes his flatmate with a frighteningly avid expression and says, "How much do you want to know?"

"Er... All of it, I suppose," John ventures, trying to decide whether this sudden display of interest is a positive sign or a storm warning.

Sherlock rolls his eyes at this, but not very stormily. "No. What's the information worth to you?"

"Well, I'm only wondering because you've made such a mystery out of it! We're not actually in prison. I'm not going to go buy you a pa-" John stops himself, aware that he's come perilously close to mentioning a Certain Thing that a Certain Person has been awfully,  _surprisingly_  good about Not Doing.

In the awkward pause that follows, Sherlock strikes, pale eyes glittering. "If you're suggesting bribery, what about a drink?"

John boggles at him as if he'd just expressed an interest in football. "A what? No. You don't drink. Well. You almost never...  _Why_  do you want a drink? Is this a code? What do you mean?"

"I mean," Sherlock says, slowly, and with chillingly false nonchalance, "I find myself in need of a change of venue. I need to immerse myself in the brotherhood of man." Before John can object to this ludicrous statement, he holds up a hand and adds, theatrically, "Obviously, I would  _never_  suggest we go somewhere where we could be recognised by a member of the public."

"It hasn't been  _that_  long. You're fairly memorable."

"Mmm." It's not a disagreement. "I could wear a disguise. We could find a place that neither of us have ever been to before, and go there. There are always new pubs springing up in London. Find us one of them."

John sets his laptop on the floor so he can cross his arms forbiddingly. "Why a pub?"

"Because, much as it pains me to say it, pubs are full of  _people_ , John. A staggering panorama of human beings assembled in dim lighting conditions, demonstrating impaired judgement and swapping feeble witticisms."

"You want to people-watch?"

"Not the expression I would have chosen, but yes. That."

John can feel himself beginning to acquiesce, and while he knows it's a terrible idea, the voice in his head (one that sounds suspiciously like the man he's already having an audible conversation with) asks  _What are you afraid of?_  So he qualifies it. "This is to help you think?"

"Yes." Sherlock is poised on the edge of the sofa, as if awaiting the crack of a starting pistol.

"It can't be too near the flat, though," John says, belatedly aware that making stipulations implies consent. "Promise me you won't deduce people loudly or say something nasty to the barman."

"Agreed. You choose the place. I've got to find something suitably pedestrian to wear."

"I didn't say yes," John sighs, but he reaches for his laptop, just the same. He hadn't said no.

* * *

It's large and not particularly nice, but it is new, reasonably priced, and the clientele are predominantly sport enthusiasts. Perhaps that explains the bewildering hodgepodge of weathered cricket bats, yellowed team photographs, and limp football scarves standing in for decor. Most eyes are fixed on the screens mounted over the bar, which are, predictably, replaying Olympic footage interspersed with interviews and commentary.

As it happens, the kitchen has shut down for the night, so John leaves Sherlock alone at their table and ventures away in search of humble crisps and beer. His progress towards the bar is slowed by packs of inconveniently tall and boisterous university students, so there is plenty of time to reconnoitre.

It takes Sherlock less than two minutes to find what he's looking for, but he merely makes a note to himself, a sort of bookmark, and resumes scanning the crowd. It won't do to show his hand too early.

By the time John returns with their pints and a packet of crisps carefully tucked under his arm, Sherlock has collected a series of minor deductions. Because it's something that entertains them both, because it's something they used to do together, these deductions form the basis of a game.

"What does the taller of the two women at the table behind me do for her living?" Sherlock inquires,  _sotto voce,_  after a brief and companionable silence marred only by occasional shouts from the bar, televised applause, and the mastication of crisps.

John is well placed to have a good look at her without needing to be overt about it. Sherlock does not turn, having committed the physical details of the woman to memory. Instead, he watches John. "You've noticed her shoes," he says, tracking the motion of the other man's eyes with approval. "Good."

"They're...clogs. Like the ones nurses wear, but more stylish? She's got a job that keeps her on her feet all day. And she's, ah, she's wearing black clothes that don't really suit her. Some sort of uniform?"

"Near enough. Look at her hands."

"They're...well, she hasn't got long fingernails. Her friend does. Is that what you mean?"

"What else?"

"Hmm. I—Her hair's very blonde."

"Oh, brilliant, John. She  _is_  very blonde. Happily for you, that's not entirely irrelevant." Sherlock crunches the final crisp between his teeth and savours the sting of salt-and-vinegar on his tongue. He does  _not_  enjoy the gritty, greasy film the crisps have left behind on his hands. 

John pours the remaining crumbs at the bottom of the bag into his own hand, and then licks it clean like a small, tidy mammal of some sort, frowning away into the distance beyond Sherlock's shoulder.

"Oh!" he exclaims at last.

"Have you got it?"

"I think so."

"And?"

"Hairdresser," John states with perfect confidence, and takes a triumphant swig of beer as punctuation.

It's the correct answer, and Sherlock feels a touch of proprietary pride in his friend's success. He wonders if John has caught all of the finer details: her chapped hands; the thin, streaking stain of chemical dye on her right forearm, delineating the point where her disposable gloves ceased to protect her flesh; the faint constellation of short, fine hairs clinging to her trouser legs...

John sets his glass down and adds, "I know I'm right. The jig was up the moment she started examining the ends of her friend's hair in a suspiciously professional way."

"You are." Sherlock rubs his fingertips together. He's unwilling to go down the hall to scrub them clean just yet, because he has another mission to accomplish first. Having abraded them over an inadequately sized bar napkin to little result, he now rubs them against his own denim-encased legs. " _The jig was up,_  though, John? Really?"

He shrugs, unrepentant. "I did rather well, didn't I? Now you. What about the friend?"

"If I tell you she's a journalist—and she  _is,_  of course—can you guess which awful rag she scribbles for?"

"Well. She's got too much makeup on, and that dress doesn't suit her. Not sure that's much good, though."

Rather than admit that he doesn't know, either (although it would be— _will be_ —easy enough to find out when the time comes), Sherlock takes a small sip of bitter. At his current rate of consumption, it will take him approximately three hours to finish.

John's own pint is already half gone. "I know it's wrong," he ventures, hunching conspiratorially over the glossy, slightly damp Formica table, "but the temptation to go over there right now and just...just say something stupid to her, just to get this all over with, is painfully strong."

"It would solve one of our more consuming problems," Sherlock allows, surprised and pleased that John has arrived at this position so quickly, "but it lacks a certain something."

"Oh, I know," John agrees. "Mycroft. He'd have me killed for breaking your cover."

"Not just you."  _So John doesn't like this skulking about any more than I do. Of course he doesn't. Good._

"I've considered anonymous telephone calls to the papers, unusually explicit graffiti, old-fashioned postcards, or simply writing Harry an email with the subject heading,  _Guess What? He's Back_ ," John continues. "All easily traced back to us, I'm afraid."

"Something with plausible deniability would be best," Sherlock agrees.

John gazes off towards the television screens set above the bar. Abruptly reminded of his original reason for agreeing to this excursion, he turns back and fixes a stern look on Sherlock. "So. We're here. You have a drink that you are not, in fact, actually drinking. You've had plenty of time to deduce people and dismiss them as boring. When are you going to tell me about Jack Cutter?"

"I need to wash my hands," Sherlock says. Because he really,  _really_  does. But his  _(insane, efficient, slightly dangerous)_  plan is burning a hole in his concentration. If he doesn't act soon, he'll probably be forced to do something worse. Waiting is pointless. John has practically given him consent already. He checks his previously bookmarked target near the bar, and thinks,  _That's the one. Definitely. Yes._

John tilts his head at him, forehead lightly furrowed, and then shuts his eyes momentarily in resignation. "Fine. Wash your hands. When you get back, you're telling me."

"Fine." Sherlock slides out of his seat. He considers leaving his cap behind in a gesture of good faith, but no: it's an integral part of his horrid disguise. He slouches away towards the toilets without a backwards glance.

It's still very crowded, and as he makes his way towards the end of the hall, hatefully labelled "Gents," he becomes suddenly, painfully aware that the last time he was near this many people, he was also pretending to be someone else. Ronald Adair, to be precise.

Only, of course, that time  _(those times)_ , he had been somewhat (fine— _incredibly)_  high. As he is buffeted about by customers and servers, he cannot help but feel a certain inappropriate nostalgia. He'd been miserable, of course, but also beautifully insulated from the rest of humanity, wrapped as he was in a golden, chemical glow. People's voices weren't so shrill. He didn't feel a faint and distasteful layer of grime coating every surface he touched.

His skin is crawling. Had he managed to make himself worse by thinking about it? Does it matter?

Finally, he arrives at the door, admonishing himself for affecting a completely unnecessary limp as part of his nameless character. As he reaches for the handle, another man comes barreling through at high speed and rams his face directly into Sherlock's right shoulder.

The stranger is shorter than he is, as many people are, and ginger in a pale rabbity sort of a way. When he apologises, it is immediately clear that he is Irish. "I'm sorry!" he exclaims. "I haven't hurt you, have I?" He's got a faint red mark on the bridge of his nose, clearly delineating the point of impact.

"No, it's fine, mate," Sherlock very carefully does  _not_  snap at him, making his own voice sound blandly Estuary without any effort at all. "My fault."

The Irishman crinkles nervous, surprisingly dark eyes at him, and rabbits away down the hall with a final murmured "Sorry."

Sherlock continues onwards into the empty lavatory, and tries to shake off the abrupt and terrifying sense of  _disposability_  that their encounter has evoked in him. He is painfully aware of his own fragility, although he had not been injured. His oversized grey hoodie is not as thick as his preferred coat, but the bruise will be small, if there is one. He should be perfectly fine.

He isn't.

There are three white sinks set in a tidy row. He chooses the one furthest from the door and succumbs to the wave of vertigo that has been threatening to engulf him since he started down the hall. Hands braced against the porcelain, he presses his face against the cold  _(filthy)_ , condensation-spotted glass of the mirror, willing his hammering heart to slow down.

He smells something burning.

That makes no sense. It isn't cigarette smoke, which would not be completely unexpected, if forbidden, in a public toilet. It's a scent that is typically categorised under Kitchen.

 _Burnt toast._   _What does that mean?_

His lip twitches mirthlessly as he suddenly remembers an article he read detailing the warning signs of a stroke. That would be an ignominious end, to say the least.

Not that. Definitely _not_ that.

Why toast? Why, also, is that thought paired with ammonia and something... _oily_  in his memory?

_Don't be stupid._

He closes his eyes for a second, and with the momentary darkness comes the distant whisper of a sentence. It's spoken in a strange, almost featureless voice:

_The doctor is next._

He should be able to place the words, the voice, but he cannot.

He feels a very tangible but also completely unidentifiable alarm, so he opens his eyes. He scrubs his hands under the tap with some lumpily dispensed soap, and makes his way back through the crowd towards the bar, adrenaline quickening his steps.

It's time to start a fight.

* * *

John had followed Sherlock's passage through the crowd with interest, admiring his artfully bent posture and oddly shadowed face—honestly, the man was not made to wear hats—and rolling his eyes at the subtle limp he'd apparently decided to give himself. This had better not be based on John's.  _Which is completely gone now,_  he reminds himself.  _I suppose he's welcome to it._

He entertains himself by glancing around the pub. Only it is not, in fact, all that entertaining, and he's not in the mood to play the Deduction Game without his flatmate. Not the one they  _had_  been playing, at any rate. Because now he's more than certain that the man is up to something. All the signs have pointed to this: his restlessness, his rapid vacillation between interest and disinterest in his surroundings, the way his fingers writhed and drummed around his mostly neglected pint glass. Oh, and the way he kept stalling when he could be impressing John with his knowledge about Jack Cutter.

Add to this the fact that Sherlock has been cooped up for weeks, thwarted by both Mycroft and Lestrade, and that he has now wilfully subjected himself to the sort of environment he loathes on general principle... Yes, all the signs point to him doing something spectacularly stupid. He simply won't tolerate being separated from evidence he can use to solve a case. Given their location, it doesn't take much thought to identify the sort of thing he has in mind.

John hastily downs the last of his lager, and glances back towards the hallway. Sherlock should have returned by now. He's only washing his hands. How long can that,  _should_  that, take?

By the time John has crushed the last napkin into a small, sodden cube, he spots the lanky greyish figure he's been expecting. He's slinking towards the bar, but his posture and gait have changed since the last time John saw him; he's a bit taller, a bit faster. Still not quite himself, at least. There might be time to stop him.

Unless John is part of the plan? He's not sure. He does, however, suspect that he had inadvertently given Sherlock some sort of implied permission.

Oh god. He had.

That means John is  _definitely_  part of the plan.

_Fuck._

Quietly and unobtrusively, he slides out of his seat and begins walking towards the bar.

Sherlock has threaded his way over to a man standing behind a bar stool. He's of average height and medium build, brown-haired and rugby-shirted. He has his hand draped possessively over the shoulder of the woman seated in front of him. John watches in faint horror as Sherlock insinuates himself into the narrow space beside him with easy grace and leans over (a bit too close, really, even if it is rather loud) to whisper something in the other man's ear. He has also— _oh god_ —removed his cloth cap and stuffed it into his back pocket.

Whatever he said can't have been good. The man at the bar backs away, and even in the flickering lights of the television screens, it's clear his face is reddening with anger.

Sherlock also steps back, hands lifted in a placating gesture. He's saying something, but John can't quite hear the words. He is, however, extremely worried about the smile on Sherlock's face. It should be apologetic, to go with the hands, but it really isn't. He had thought himself reasonably familiar with his flatmate's repertoire of strange smiles, but this isn't one he can place from personal experience.

It does not appear to help, or maybe that's the point. Sherlock shrugs and turns away. John's quite close now, and he could swear he sees him counting under his breath.

If this were a film, now would come the bit where John says Sherlock's name loudly and urgently, thus conveniently blowing his cover. It's really not a name that other people have. Unfortunately, it's Real Life, which means that no one is under any obligation to act predictably. It's quite clear from the angry man's posture and the bottle in his hand that he is going to try something a bit nastier than simply shoving Sherlock into the bar or calling him something nasty.

John doesn't hesitate. He launches himself forward, not at the man with the uplifted bottle, but at Sherlock, who is closer. It's a good tackle, but not without its faults. They take out two university students and a drinks tray. This is messy, but infinitely better than a crushed skull.

"You weren't supposed to do that," Sherlock remarks gently, after they've correctly identified and separated their limbs.

The man with the bottle is shouting obscenities at a member of the staff now, who are, in turn, threatening to call the police. John has plenty of time to assess their injuries. His  _own_  injury, to be precise, because he had managed to plant the palm of his hand in a sizeable shard of glass while pulling himself off of Sherlock. Everyone else appears to be just fine.

"He was going to bash your head in. What did you  _say_  to him?" John hisses, gratefully accepting Sherlock's offer of a blood-staunching stack of napkins.

"I told him I liked his shirt."

John snorts a little as he presses them against his hand and watches the red seeping up through the layers. "Really."

"It's  _possible_  that I implied an unwelcome degree of familiarity," Sherlock concludes, and straightens up, all subterfuge abandoned. He may be wringing out the beer-drenched remains of a charity hoodie, but there's really no mistaking who and what he is.

"Mr. Holmes," says a pleasant voice, and John looks away from his brilliantly idiotic friend and up into the familiar, slightly amused brown eyes of Jeff, one of Mycroft's men-without-surname. He's turned out very nicely in a dark suit, which (along with his glowing earpiece) strongly suggests that he's on duty. He proves this by firmly and pleasantly suggesting they accompany him out of the pub.

Sherlock is the only one who objects to this.

"I beg your pardon?" he begins, raising a haughty eyebrow, but then John jabs him in the ribs with his good hand.

"Shut up! We know him." He smiles apologetically at Jeff, and more generally, at everyone else, then follows both men towards the exit. As they near the door, he stops.

The young woman from the newspaper is standing frozen beside an incongruous artificial palm tree, her mobile clutched in one pink-taloned hand. "Sorry," John says. "My friend told me you're a journalist. You  _are,_  aren't you?"

She blinks startled, mascara-crusted lashes at him. "Oh! Yes. Jane Ellis.  _The Sun."_

"John Watson," he says cordially, only just stopping himself from offering her his bloody-napkined hand. He's fairly certain that it would be considered bad etiquette. "I don't know if you're interested, only that man over there is Sherlock Holmes."

"Is he?" she says, clearly torn between shock and professional interest.

"If you don't know who that is, try Googling him," John suggests, with a warm smile, and turns to go. Sherlock and Jeff appear to be arguing on the pavement outside, which can't bode well for the future.

"Wait!" she calls. "Can you tell me what has just happened?"

"I couldn't possibly comment," he says, and does his best to leg it towards the open door with dignity.


	7. Full Fathom Five

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bad hotels and bedtime stories.

He trudges back to his hotel by the longest possible route, each footfall an accusation. 

Where on earth was his head? Running headlong into someone like that in the pub...That was stupid. Well, and he shouldn’t have been there to begin with, should he?

 _The correct answer, old thing, is_ no.

His throbbing face will serve as a reminder to remain focussed for the next few days. Because a promise is a promise, and he’s committed himself to this one now. It’s not the sort of deal a man can renege upon. 

_Run home, you fool, and try to avoid the urge to pretend you’re normal. Because it never, ever fucking works, does it?_

No. It never does.

* * *

They’d become accustomed to perceiving the long black cars of the British Government as a sort of well-camouflaged environmental feature; something that only gradually comes into focus as if it had been there all along, waiting. Tonight, the illusion is shattered by the local parking situation.

John finds himself in the unenviable position of struggling down a badly-paved alley after two taller men who are loping along at a rapid pace whilst conducting an argument. His hand hurts like a bastard, he’s in danger of losing his makeshift bandage, and he has overheard something alarming about not being able to return home tonight and _someone will bring you your things._

Sherlock is industriously filling the momentary pauses in Jeff’s dogged explanation of the situation with a colourful and extremely energetic diatribe addressing Mycroft’s taxonomical classification, his dress sense, and inferior intellect. It’s impressive, but it’s not helpful. By the time John nearly breaks an ankle on an unexpected chunk of concrete, he has had more than enough. 

 **“STOP!”**  he bellows, in his loudest, most commanding voice, clutching his bloody hand to his chest. 

Gratifyingly, they do. It is distinctly  _less_  gratifying when Jeff coughs apologetically and says, “The car’s just here, actually.”

And so it is, gently gleaming by the side of the street, just ahead. Perhaps it  _does_  have some sort of stealth capability.

“Fantastic,” John says. ‘So. Let’s do a quick assessment, before either of us gets into this car. Do I understand that we are now going away together, unexpectedly?”

“Yes,” Jeff confirms, glancing anxiously over his shoulder. A few people from the pub, including Jane Ellis of _The Sun,_  appear to be moving rather quickly in their direction.

“Do we have a choice?”

“I’m afraid not.”

“Okay. I see that,” John agrees, as a tinted window descends and a man with a shaved head regards them with an air of well-polished professional menace. 

“John,” Sherlock begins, urgently touching his arm. “We could—”

“Best not, Sherlock.” John cuts him off, quite firmly. He nods at Jeff. “Fine.”

“Fine?” Sherlock repeats, incredulous.  _“Fine?”_

“Get in the car, Sherlock.” John makes his way towards the vehicle. He is suddenly feeling extremely tired.

* * *

It’s not a very good hotel. Their window has a commanding view of a stained brick wall and a neighbouring rooftop adorned with the deposits of an impressively prolific and well-fed dynasty of pigeons. Apparently, the rusty spikes weren’t much of a deterrent.

“Well, this  _is_  nice,” Sherlock remarks drily, flopping down on one of the forbiddingly polyester-shrouded beds. The springs makes a tragic groaning sound. “What lovely pea-green hessian walls.”

John flexes his hand experimentally, thankful that Jeff’s medical kit had been so very well-stocked. “I can’t imagine there are many rooms available on short notice right now. After all, the Olympics are going on.”

“Yes,” Sherlock muses, eyes aglow with anticipation. “And tomorrow, we’ll finally get to  _do_  something.” 

“Right. Because, once again, you’ve managed to get exactly what you wanted by underhanded means.” John opens one of his bags—but it’s not his; only the contents are.  _This_  bag is much nicer than anything he personally owns—and rifles through it in search of a clean shirt. He’d tried to avoid getting blood everywhere, but it’s really difficult to apply direct pressure, elevate a bleeding wound,  _and_  flee the paparazzi. 

“Underhanded?” 

“Yes.” He strips off his shirt and pulls on a clean tee, trying not to think about the fact that someone had to have rummaged through all of his bedroom drawers in record time to make this possible. “I knew you were up to something, but would it have killed you to share your plan before things went pear-shaped?”

“You got there eventually.”

“Just in the nick of time, I think you’ll find.” John locates his toothbrush in a small waterproof bag, and sidles into the bathroom. The door is prevented from opening fully due to its close proximity with the bed. “Or were you hoping for a new personal best in consecutive concussions?”

“You agreed it was necessary. We weren’t getting anywhere with the investigation while we were trapped in the flat.” 

John, mouth brimming with minty foam, does not deign to answer this.

“Don’t think for a moment that my dear brother wasn’t ready with a contingency plan. I was just bumping things up the timetable. He still gets to control everything. He ought to be pleased.”

John spits, runs a damp cloth over his face, and emerges. “Yes, well. I’m not so sure he’ll see it in the same light. And while I  _may_  have indicated that I agreed it was time we stopped hiding, I could probably have done without the melodrama. I just... I just wish you’d actually  _said_  something before involving me in one of your mad schemes again.”

Sherlock is now clad in pyjamas, but is otherwise sprawled in much the same position he’d assumed when they first arrived. John considers searching for his own sleepwear, but decides he’s too tired to bother. He can sleep in his pants and shirt. It won’t be the first time. He removes his jeans, somewhat clumsily with his wounded hand, starts to pull back the covers, and then stops. 

“Do you think...?” He glances meaningfully at the door to their room.

“Without a doubt,” Sherlock answers, not bothering to interrupt his survey of the ceiling.

John pulls the door open anyway, abruptly revealing the man he had privately christened as  _Big Bad Bald Bloke._ “Ah. Yes. That answers that.” He closes the door again, makes a brief detour to draw the curtains, and climbs into bed. “To continue our discussion, though... Your method left much to be desired.”

“How so?” Sherlock asks, abruptly snapping off the light switch mounted in the wall between their beds. 

“Well, for one thing, it was unnecessarily reckless. Picking a fight like that. Was I supposed to stop you before he caved your head in?”

“You did, though.” 

“Yes, and my throbbing hand wishes I hadn’t.” 

“Take a paracetamol.”

“I already have. No thanks to you.” John scowls into his pillow, wondering what, precisely, he means to accomplish. Here, in the darkness, he feels as if the hundreds of times they’ve had a variant of this conversation in the past have all bled together into one. And while it’s  _familiar_  (and arguably, much better than actually  _missing_  these fruitless conversations because Sherlock is dead), it’s still very frustrating.

“Would it make any difference if I apologised?”

“Maybe. No. Probably not. Just...try to  _think_ next time _.”_

There is a light, derisive snort from the other bed. 

“You know what I mean. Think about your own safety.Because you don’t, do you?”

“I was prepared to dodge.”

“Balls, you were.” John presses his uninjured hand against his eyes until he sees sparks, and continues onward. He can’t seem to stop. “I realise I  _may_  have misunderstood you in all the insanity, but I seem to recall you saying that he was angry because...” Because,  _damn it._

“Because I rather crudely propositioned him?” Sherlock suggests, with brazen ease.

“Well. Yes. That.” 

“It was effective, though, wasn’t it?”

“How did you—” John cuts himself off. He’d prefer not to know, really. “No. My  _point_  is, people like that... _._ Well, _some_  people, react to that sort of thing with an irrational rage. And it makes them extremely dangerous.”

Sherlock sighs, and in the dark, John can’t tell whether it’s due to exasperation or regret.  “I  _may_  have miscalculated to some extent...”

“I should say you did.”

“And you  _have_.”  There is a rustling, thrashing sound from the other bed, which may or may not be Sherlock getting under his covers. Or turning his back on John, perhaps.

“I’m sorry,” John says, after a lengthy silence. “Can’t seem to stop sometimes.” 

“Mmm.” Sherlock waits a moment, and then clears his throat. “Jack Cutter,” he ventures, experimentally.

“Hmm?” 

“Yes,” Sherlock affirms, and John is suddenly aware that this is, in a sense, going to be his apology. “Jack Cutter,” he continues, “was, in many ways, two entirely different people. You may have noticed that some of his characteristic behavioural patterns changed significantly after his father died. For example, he always used to cough and gag upon first contact with the water. It’s almost as if he were afraid of being drowned. Ridiculous in a swimmer. But evidence suggests that this changed in May of 2011. Then there’s his sudden departure from his intensive training schedule after years of dedication...”

John closes his eyes, and inappropriately calmed by the rise and fall of Sherlock’s voice recounting a horrifying and complicated tale of childhood abuse and exploitation, he eventually falls asleep. 

* * *

After a while, Sherlock stops talking. He can hear the faint slow sounds of John’s breath and knows he is asleep. It’s oddly comforting. 

He feels...not quite  _guilt,_  as such, but regret. It occurs to him that the strange manifestation he’d experienced in the public toilet had rattled him more than he was willing to admit. This, in turn, might have... Well, it might have impaired his judgement a bit later on. Offending people is a science in its own right. He really ought to be capable of judging how far is  _too_  far. 

Frowning, he rubs at the bump on his collarbone. His ability to offend others deliberately, or even  _accurately_ , is not the point. No matter what John might have to say about it. 

No. The important thing, the thing he really  _must_  accomplish, is a reconstruction of the moment he’d had (or thought he’d had) while he was standing at that sink. 

How did it begin?

He closes his eyes, which is fairly unnecessary, as it is remarkably dark with the curtain drawn, and takes himself back to the moment he'd walked through the open door. His heart was beating very fast, he reminds himself. By hyperventilating (quietly), he can probably replicate the feeling of panic to some extent. He raises his hand to his own throat, and feels his pulse accelerating as he does so. 

Good.

So, his face. He’d pressed his face against the mirror. It was cold and wet. He remembers thinking it was filthy— _No, that’s not relevant._ Cold and wet, then. And yes, also this: his eyes were closed, as they are now. His hands were braced on the porcelain sink, also cold...

It was at this point that he had smelled the burning toast, and the other things. The ammonia, mingled with oil. But he didn’t really smell them, did he? 

 _Smell is the sense most strongly linked to memory. Linked to_ emotionally charged  _memory._

He suppresses the temptation to contemplate the intricate, little-understood interactions between the entorhinal cortex, the amygdala, and the hippocampus.  _Irrelevant._

So. The smell  _was_  real, had been legitimately present at some point in time, but  _not_  when he was standing at the sink. The scent  _was_ associated with him standing  _with his eyes closed, hands on the—_ No. His hands weren’t...they didn’t...

 _He’s standing,_ yes, definitely standing. _His eyes are closed. His heart is racing. His face is pressed against the glass... His eyes are closed. He hears a voice..._

No.

 _He cannot_ see. _His face is pressed against the glass, and his—_ Oh. His hands are against the glass. _Holding himself up. Holding himself_ up  _against the cold, wet, glass because he’s_ sliding down it. 

Sliding down a  _window._

 _For a moment, I thought you were dead, all crumpled under the window and covered in blood and glass fragments. I thought you were dead and I had_ killed _you. I thought—_

Not that.  _Sliding._

 _I saw you, slowly sliding down the window, and there he was, pointing a gun at your head. I thought,_ Don’t look—

Oh. Because John had said—

Sherlock opens his eyes with a start and realises he’s tasting copper. He’s not sure whether he has bitten through his lip...but oh, there it is, an almost imperceptible burn.

He lies still for a moment, slowing his heart down, breathing deliberately, and thinks,  _I_ do _know what that was. That was Sebastian Moran. He’s the one who said_ The doctor is—

No.

 _You’re not dead,_  he reminds himself, and stealthily climbs out of bed to rinse the taste of blood away.

* * *

“This tea is unbelievably bad,” John calls through the closed bathroom door the next morning. Sherlock has been in there for a very long time. “Do you want to try the coffee?”

There’s a muffled response, but it’s unintelligible. 

“Coffee! Do you want some?” 

The door swings open, releasing a blast of humid air and Sherlock, still in pyjamas, looking pink-faced and annoyed. “Yes.” He throws his sopping towel over the foot of his bed and announces, “The shower isn’t working.”

“Seriously? I’ve changed my mind. This _is_  intended as a punishment.” John leaves his fellow prisoner alone with the electric kettle and goes to perform his morning ablutions. 

As he shaves, he can hear Sherlock talking to someone in the background over the burr of the electric razor. “Your  _intentions_  are perfectly clear... Even for you, a  _punitive_  hotel room is impressive... Well, that’s something, I suppose... Fine.  _Yes,_  I know.” There’s an odd thumping sound, which is almost definitely that of a man hurriedly putting his shoes on with one hand. “No. I wasn’t planning to.”

John is greeted by the sight of Sherlock, completely (and faultlessly) dressed, throwing his smartphone onto his perfectly made-up bed in disgust.  It bounces. 

“Bad news?” he asks. 

“Mycroft.  We’re off to the Olympic Village. Get your shoes on.”

“So we’re investigating.”

“Finally, yes.” Sherlock manages to spin in the space between the beds, scanning the room. It’s an impressive feat. “We’re to have a police escort, but it’s better than nothing.”

John finds a clean pair of socks and puts them on. He locates his shoes under the bed and is just tying them up when there’s a businesslike knock on their door. “Time to go?”

“Apparently,” Sherlock agrees, bounding to the door in one stride and wrenching it open with a flourish. 

There’s a moment of unexpected, heavy silence.

John straightens up and takes in Sherlock, frozen with his hand on the doorknob, and just beyond him, the Big Bad Bald Bloke and an unfamiliar man in Metropolitan Police uniform. And just beyond that—

“Sergeant Donovan,” Sherlock says, in a voice completely devoid of expression. “What an unexpected surprise.”

 

 


	8. Regression Analysis

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Interviews, information, and a little Sally Donovan...

They had told her already, of course. It's not as if she doesn't know what waits behind that hotel room door. It isn't precisely like a nightmare, waiting in that stale yellowed hallway for the longest seconds of her life, scrubbing her palms down her thighs, cold with shame and anger and an emotion she simply cannot name. It isn't precisely like that, but it's awfully close.

She can hear their voices, faintly, just within. John Watson's first—and she thinks,  _I haven't seen him in a year—_ saying something ending in a question. The answer is returned in a resonant voice, a good voice, actually; it always was  _(just not the things he said)._  And there's a rustling sound and another question and an answer, and—

And Jones is looking at her, because she's stepped back, just looking blankly at the door, all cracks and scratches in the paint. Or maybe she never  _had_  stepped forward; that's a possibility. She should be in the vanguard; she usually is. But she can't raise her hand, so it's left to poor Jones, who is very young and—no, not young, just...he doesn't  _know._ He's got no idea what he's walking into. How could he?

He raps at the door, and there's a sort of gallop on the other side, and a fumble at the latch, which means it's going to open—

—with a rush, and he's a tall dark blur caught in mid-motion, the way she always sees him in memory  _(only sometimes he's falling through a low-res sky on film)_  with a white white face and staring eyes that stop—he stops. He speaks; he says, "Sergeant Donovan. What an unexpected surprise."

He speaks, and he's certainly not dead, but his voice might as well be. He knows that she knows she practically  _made_  him jump. She thought he'd lost his life due to her mistake, and he hadn't. He hadn't! It's Sally who has lost almost everything, instead—so she simply says, "Yes."

And as they go down the hall and towards the waiting car, it's not even his unearthly and unaccustomed silence that unnerves her: it's John Watson's accusatory eyes.

* * *

They're sitting in a sunny little conference room, awaiting Liu Fang's arrival.

Sally says, "They'll send her translator along. The Chinese insist. We think she's more of a guard, because the girl's English is really good."

"That will save time," The Freak says. "My Mandarin is not." As if it's worth saying.

"Thought you'd have had time to learn," Sally says. "When you were off pretending to be dead."

"Not really," he answers evenly. He does not elaborate.

"She's a good kid. Very brave. Please don't say anything to upset her."

"I hadn't planned to." He gives her a level look, one that lasts far too long.

She shouldn't, but she does. Even now, after everything, the spiteful words just seem to happen. "Well, at least this witness won't scream when she sees you."

He says nothing, then. He doesn't bother to blink.

* * *

Liu Fang is quite short, which makes sense in a gymnast—Sally thinks she is under five feet tall—and again, she's impressed by how muscular she is, solid in a way that her red nylon track suit cannot hide. Her hair is pulled back severely into a knot at the back of her head. She is seventeen years old.

She is followed into the conference room by a taller, somewhat reedy young woman, with short wispy hair, a delicately pretty face, and an expression of mild dismay.

"My name is Fang," the gymnast says, plonking herself down abruptly in the seat across from Sherlock, "but in English, I prefer to be called Anne."

"Why Anne?" Sherlock asks, briefly, glancing at the interpreter. She stands with her hand on the empty chair, uncertain.

"I like it." She smiles, revealing slightly crooked teeth and adds, "Also,  _Fang_  sounds stupid in English."

"Anne, this is Sherlock Holmes," Sally says. "He has come to talk to you about your mother."

"I know," Anne says. "You were in all the newspapers with your friend, Doctor John Watson."

"Was I?" 

"I have seen three today, already." She nods at her companion, who has seated herself closer to the door than to Sally, and adds, "Lin and I like to improve our English by reading them together."

Lin twists her hands in her lap, and ventures earnestly, "Your newspapers are very instructive."

Sally starts the interview. First, they go over the information they'd gathered before. Mercifully, the Freak remains silent for this. At times, it would be almost easy to forget that he and the translator are present, and in fact, Sally does largely forget about Lin. But Sherlock, quiet and still though he may be, feels like a dark line slashed into the fabric of the room; a window into a roiling landscape she cannot allow herself to see.

Anne's voice is steady as she speaks, but it is clear that she is struggling. The strength and discipline her gymnastic training requires are holding her together. But Sally knows there will, inevitably, be a breakdown. There always is. Hard work is never enough. Plans fall through. People leave or die or fail you somehow.

"You've told me your mother was in good health," Sally prompts, after the timeline had been established once again, and Anne and Lin's discovery of the body reviewed.

"Oh yes." Anne nods. "But she worked very hard for the team. And for me. She had many worries."

"Concerns about your performance?" Sherlock asks. He's looking at Anne's wrist. She is wearing a bracelet of thick, irregular yellow stones.

"Yes. It is, we think... We thought this year was the final opportunity. For me. Because I am growing, and already, I am having difficulties." She glances, fleetingly, downwards.

"How is your ankle?" Sally asks. They'd discussed it before.

Anne places her left foot on the desk without hesitation. "It is much better." There's an intricate pattern woven in strips of violently pink tape above her white trainers.

"It's very  _bright,"_  Lin remarks from her corner.

"I am not ashamed of my weakness," Anne asserts, quite firmly. "Julia says that most people want the kind that looks like skin, but I prefer this colour. It is meant to tell my muscles how to work correctly. I think it is more effective this way."

"Julia," Sherlock repeats. "Who is she?"

"Oh, she is one of the...physical therapists? Here. She has been very good to me."

"What will you do after the Games?" Sherlock asks, abruptly.

"I will return home to China. I have no family, so... I must make a plan, quickly." Anne lifts her chin, and adds, "I must do my very best today so I have more options for the future. It is what my mother always wanted."

Sally sees Lin's faint smile of approval at this. She thinks,  _a watchdog, but a loyal one. She likes Anne._

"What sort of options?"

Why would the Freak ask that? It has nothing to do with anything.

The girl's eyes steal towards Lin, and flick away. "I like to learn languages. Perhaps I will teach them, or become a translator."

"Your English  _is_  very good," Sally agrees.

"Yes," Anne states, simply. Her certainty, her conviction in her own abilities, is a palpable force.

"How's your Russian?" Sherlock asks.

"You are looking at my bracelet?" Anne asks, eyes narrowed, following his.

"Baltic amber. You don't wear other jewelry, but you are fond of this." He indicates the bracelet with a tilt of his head. "Could be a gift, but you associate it with the future."

Her smile is slow-dawning, but delighted when it arrives. "I have read about your abilities."

Sherlock nods. "It's all true." And although Sally has to admit that his confidence is quite as justified as Anne's, it makes her feel something other than admiration.

"I  _do_  like Russian things," Anne says. "My bracelet. The people. The writers."

"Tolstoy?" Sherlock asks.

"Sometimes. He spends too much time on names and dynasty. It's boring." Anne studies him. "You, I think, would prefer Dostoevsky."

"Crime and Punishment?" And Sally stares, because the Freak looks,  _sounds_  amused.

"Yes."

"I read it five times the year I was sixteen," he agrees. "Do you speak it, or only read?"

"Mostly, I read. I know I say things badly."

"I might be worse," Sherlock suggests. He shuts his eyes for a moment, inhales audibly, and says "Есть ещё что-то, что переводчица не должна слышать?"*

Anne blinks, touches one of the beads on her wrist, and says "моя мама хотела, чтобы я жила в Англии."

Sherlock nods. "I wondered whether I had got it right."

"You did." She smiles at Sally, who is completely mystified, and says, "We are talking about reason and the devil."

Sherlock snorts. "One is rare, and the other nonexistent." But he smiles at Anne as he does so.

They wrap up the interview, then, because Anne has a gymnastic programme to complete later that day. Sally wishes her luck, and adds, "I know your mother would be very proud of you for keeping on. It must be lonely."

Anne touches Sally's arm then, with a finger. "Please, don't worry, Sergeant Donovan. I cannot be lonely. I am never alone." Which is true, because she has Lin. Lin, who cannot be a suspect for the same reason. She is also never alone.

The two Chinese women leave, and Sally takes a swig of her coffee. She says, "So. What was that? I'm pretty sure it wasn't a Russian book club meeting. Not much good to us, was it?"

"More useful than I had hoped, actually," the Freak says, thoughtfully, rubbing at his collar as if it itches. "She told me something rather interesting."

"What?"

" _My mother wanted me to live in England."_ Sherlock smiles, the way he always does when he's about to make the Yard— _make Sally_ —look stupid. _"_ You were right. She  _is_  clever."

* * *

John had been fobbed off on Detective Constable Jones. It's fine, really, but rather than giving all of his attention to Werner Achen's roommate, he's worrying about Sherlock and Sally Donovan.

It's probably for the best that he's looking at awkwardly-rendered pencil sketches of winged men, lions with human faces, and demons with sabres (drawn by Achen on the back of a printed schedule), because honestly? He's been simmering in a rage cloud ever since Donovan appeared at their door. She'd been so damned  _ready_  to believe that Sherlock was a criminal, after all. And while John had successfully addressed his issues with Greg, he hadn't seen Sally since the day, over a year ago, that everything had started going to hell.

"Seems to me, he wasn't quite right in the head," Jones says, cutting into John's angry reverie.

"No argument here." John pushes the drawings away with a shudder. "And no one has managed to locate his wife?"

"Her neighbours all think she's on holiday," DC Jones offers, 'But she didn't say where she was going."

"I can see why," John sighs.

Karl, the roommate, who had finished his events and would really like to be done with all of this so he can go cross epees (so to speak) with a fit blonde member of the US fencing team, appears to agree with that assessment. "Beate thought he was crazy. She wanted a divorce."

* * *

On the next stop in their itinerary, Doctor Ajit Patel shows them Achen's prescription for a common beta-blocker. They're heavily regulated in Olympic athletes, but as the victim was neither a sharpshooter nor an archer, the committee allowed him to continue his course of treatment.

Over the next hour, John realises he has been acquiring an extensive education in the alternative uses of a variety of popular medications. Pharmacology was not his area of speciality; trauma was. Now he can see that it's a fascinating field with a massive potential for misuse. He can't decide whether he's sorry Sherlock is missing this, or glad he isn't along for the ride.

It isn't as if John could ever protect him from any sort of knowledge pertaining to chemistry.

* * *

He's headed towards a seat by the window, struggling with a tray of curry and his bandaged hand, when a woman's voice says, "Doctor Watson, I presume?"

It's a small, lithe brunette with a sandwich wrapped in tinfoil. She is holding a newspaper, and she's rather pointedly comparing his face to the one in the photograph.

He sighs. Well, it was bound to begin eventually. The headline, at least, is positive, if a bit cumbersome:  _Holmes Suicide Faked For Investigation's Sake._  He suppresses his own morbid curiosity. How much of the truth has Mycroft allowed to bleed out?

"Guilty," he says. "I'm sorry, can I put this down?" He nods to the table, indicating that she is in his way.

"Oh! Sorry. I was too busy being star-struck to see your hand." She backs away, and in an awkward flurry, pulls out a chair for him as he sets the tray down. "You must be tired of awful people like me wanting to chat you up."

Her eyes are hopeful and her smile chagrined, so he says, "No, no. It's fine. Actually, you're the first to try." He immediately amends this. "Since the news, I mean."

She laughs. "Does that mean I can keep going, then? Only, I am so terribly curious."

John scans the crowd, spots Jones in the fruit smoothie line, and says, "Oh, why not." He notices her identity badge, and says, "I see you're an official part of this madness."

"The Olympics?" She seats herself across from him, and unwraps her sandwich. "Well. Not in a very glamorous way. I'm a physio."

"What, attending the athletes?"

"Yes. It's mostly taping people up, a bit of massage... I haven't got much going on right now. Many of the athletes have their own people."

"So I'd imagine. Have there been any interesting injuries?"

She settles into her chair. "More like ongoing things. Repetitive stress, you know?"

He nods, and eats a forkful of curry. It's decent. Well. It should be, really. He studies the woman: Julia Wills, according to her badge. She has a pleasant, slightly horsey face, and appears to be in her mid thirties. She's got a gaudy track jacket on, like virtually everyone else in the place. Hers is purple.

"So, why are you here, then, Doctor Watson?"

"John is fine."

"John, then."

He nods towards her paper, folded on the table. "What, doesn't that say?"

"No."

"Ah." He chews another mouthful of curry and says, "Well. You know the athletes that died..."

"Oh! You mean the ones that overdosed on something? I thought those were considered accidental deaths."

"Oh, I'm sure they were. But how did they get hold of the stuff in the first place?"

"So you're investigating! That's intriguing." She clasps her hands together and leans forward. "You know, I actually worked on some of them..."

"Really." John perks up, pleased to have stumbled upon a potential source of useful information.

"Oh yes! I didn't do much. Werner Achen had a bad knee. I taped it for him."

"What was he like?"

She clicks her tongue. "He didn't talk much. I got the impression he was a bit...depressive. Seemed more worked up over his knee than he should have been, you know? He'd had it for years, and it was always fine with taping. Just a patellar tracking thing." She frowns for a moment, and adds, "Mind you, he was very...strange about his wife. Mentioned her constantly. I found it a bit odd. I mean, I wasn't trying to... You know."

"Why do you think he would have...well, turned to a performance enhancer?"

She laughs, and then immediately covers her mouth in horror. "Sorry! I shouldn't. It's just that he really wasn't doing very well. And he knew it. He felt very pressured, of course. They all do."

John nods. "Obviously." His right hand is itching under its dressing, so wraps it around his bottle of water, hoping the cold surface will offer some relief.

Julia nods at his hand. "What happened to you?"

"Stupid, really. I put my hand on some broken glass. Slashed it up a bit."

"Looks like more than a bit." She gives him a sympathetic look. "I'd read something about a fight."

"Not much of one. A drunk took a swing at Sherlock. I got in the way. It was over before anything really happened." He's sure as hell not going to say,  _Sherlock pretended to make a pass at a raging homophobe in order to blow our cover because we were tired of pretending he was dead, and it worked a little too well, so I had to tackle him before a bottle connected with his head and ruined his fancy brain. Naturally I fucked up my hand on the dismount._

She snorts. "Says the man who helped take down the Wellington Arch Bomber. I'm sure it was a bit more complicated than you're letting on."

"I—what?!" John knocks his water bottle over in his haste as he reaches for her paper.  _Mycroft, you bastard,_ he thinks. "Sorry, but can I have a look at this?" Luckily, the water was still capped, so it hadn't spilled.

"By all means." He can hear her finishing her cheese sandwich as he races through the article.

It's about as factual as a description of the Tooth Fairy meeting Father Christmas for drinks on the moon. Apparently, he and Sherlock spent the last year working diligently to bring Moriarty and Sebastian Moran to justice. Undercover, of course. Well. That  _was_  slightly true, but they made it sound as if things had been more...sanctioned and coordinatedthan they had been; as if John hadn't just stumbled upon the truth at the last possible moment, and Sherlock hadn't spent weeks sliding down a cocaine tunnel and stalking the most dangerous man in London without a coherent plan. They also conveniently left out how the Arch explosion had been triggered in the first place—Sherlock, naively waltzing into Moriarty's virtual minefield—or the fact that John had later shot the bomber on his own—or that he'd recognised but failed to report him earlier—with a weapon he shouldn't have had access to. There was a blithe (far  _too_ blithe, in John's opinion) summary of Moriarty's masquerade as Richard Brook, the evidence against him that the police suddenly,  _conveniently_  managed to scrape together, and the madman's ultimate suicide. All chronologically rearranged to make more sense, of course. The truth is harder to believe or even describe without additional questions and blame.

To make matters worse, they've also managed to make it sound as if Sherlock and John were practically star-crossed lovers, reunited at last in a moment of epic peril. A very long moment that had  _actually_  consisted of John accidentally stumbling upon a murder-in-progress (where the victim just happened to be the man who'd wrecked his life by committing suicide a year earlier), John taking a shot that still sometimes makes him wake up at night because it could have gone horribly wrong, and John spending weeks putting Sherlock through DIY rehab.Fan-fucking-tastic, and no thanks to you, Mycroft.

"Oh dear." Julia says, wincing at John's expression. "I suppose it's awfully strange to read about yourself."

"That doesn't begin to cover it," John says. "Not even close."

"Is it true?" she asks, curiosity clearly warring with empathy. Her eyes are large and hazel.

"Sort of." John rubs his good hand over his forehead and says, "If you're going to sit here, can we talk about something else?"

"Sorry." She folds her sandwich wrapper into shiny metal fourths and says, "So, ah... I had to give Jack Cutter a chiropractic adjustment once..."

* * *

It's half eleven by the time they return to the hotel, which is steadfastly horrible, but almost a relief after the abrasively modern bustle of the Olympic Village.

John makes an effort to stay awake long enough to compare his notes with Sherlock's, but after his fourth face-splitting yawn, Sherlock tells him to go to bed. He doesn't argue.

As he waits in the black for John's breathing to slow, Sherlock feels a giddy sort of anticipation. It's like... It's like knowing he's about to smoke a cigarette, but without the accompanying minuscule throat spasm that reminds him that he hates smoking nearly as much as he enjoys it. This is a different sort of want, a feeling of emptiness that can be  _(will be)_  filled by something soon. Air against his tongue, yearning capillaries in his lips, which fall open as if to accept a paper cylinder or speak or breathe or—It is, but it isn't.

He shuts his eyes and lets his body become heavy and dark and unimportant, sinking into the mattress, into blankness, until he forgets to breathe.

Lassitude is not the point.

 _Stand, then._   _Stand with your face against a window—_ fall. _Slide..._

He exhales sharply. He's doing it wrong. How did he—?

_Burning smell. Cold damp sliding hands on—_

He flexes his shoulder blades deep within his coat, which makes the rough wool rub against his neck like a blanket or an unexpected hand.

No.

He considers taking his coat off. It's a distraction. He wasn't wearing it then. Wasn't himself at all.

He presses his collar back into place, and his hand stops over his collarbone, on the faint knob that didn't used to be there, the knob that he finds himself touching compulsively now because it's still surprising, as it shouldn't be. He rubs it hard, dismissively, and brings his hands back to his sides, but they feel strange there, so he folds them over his chest, like a dead knight waiting on a tomb. He breathes.

The problem is that he doesn't know where to begin. This process of interpolation works in starts, but then it fails him—it falls off abruptly into nothing. He needs to control it. But how can he fill the lacunae—how can he get to the bits before or afterwards—if he doesn't know how large the blank spaces are? If he cannot account for the time he's lost, everything that follows becomes suspect. He has to retrieve the data.

What he  _should_  do, what he really ought to do,  _right now_ , is solve the case. But it's not—It's not the highest priority, and if he can't care—he  _will_  solve it. The pieces are there. They're waiting. He'd thought today that—

Later.

He puts his hand out, blindly, towards the table between their beds. It has a glass of water on it. Not his. Curved, alas, but also helpfully beaded with moisture. Still cold.  _Glass._

This is frustrating in the same way that an analysis for other people is. This is the sort of thing that makes him lose the thread, fall out of the sky, plummet down rabbit holes. He's got to bring his speed down to make this work, and that's where the faults in the road become obvious, the cracks where the data gets lost.

He returns his hands to his side, concentrates on spreading his fingers flat against the rough polyester fabric of the bedspread.

 _Glass._  He must have had one in his hand. A glass, and some cards: slick/stiff paper. But the  _glass_  was the important thing.

Oh, but it's no good, because first he must have arrived there. Sent a message. Opened the door. Sat down at the table.  _Why is that gone?_   Why can't he see Moran's table, a table that even  _John_  could describe better than he can, in fact?

He knows what the steps look like, and the door.  _Verdigrised knob set in the centre, scarred green paint—_ It's no good. Again!

_Breathe._

Back to the glass. He touches it, condensation cold against his fingers,  _which would have been a bit abuzz, really. They were. And it's not. Ah, taste not smell_.  Whisky and water, because Rohypnol doesn't taste of anything special. _Water from the tap, and weak whisky,_ which he doesn't particularly like, because it's—

_oak like the table it's sweating on, and it burns and it's—_

Definitely  _not_  that one.

_his fingers like a distant sort of burn and he hadn't got his gloves on so he felt it like a low-concentration acid or a splash of paint or a short-term scar for the rest of the day. The car..._

Stop.

_The glass._

And he knocks it over.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Massive thanks to **golden_hair** , a native Russian speaker who very kindly corrected my grammar!


	9. A Course of Treatment

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Meaningful chats. Businesslike flirtation. Alternate uses for menswear.

John awakens with a start, not completely sure he had heard the sound of glass breaking outside of a dream. But no, Sherlock is muttering something, words he can't quite hear.  He fumbles for the light switch, heart pounding.

"Sorry. Your water glass. I knocked it over." Sherlock is groping for something on the floor between their beds, his other hand shielding his eyes against the sudden light.

"Jesus. Well, if it's broken, don't—"

"I'm not going to cut myself," he says, carefully picking up the shards and stacking them on the table. There aren't many.

"Good." John sighs and rubs his face. His mouth tastes terrible. "I think the other glass is by the sink, if you want it."

"No." Sherlock folds himself cross-legged onto his bed, which is still made. He has his coat on. "I was just trying to remember something."

John makes a questioning noise, because really, that shouldn't have resulted in a broken glass, but who knows. "Is it something I can help with?"

"Not really." Sherlock grinds his teeth together, audibly. "I, ah. It's not the case."

"Oh." He looks...not good, somehow. Drawn. "Is it something... Is it something bad?"

"It's something  _missing._  I can't—I shouldn't be. It's just..."

John waits.

"I can't have this blank space." He presses his lips together in an unhappy line, folding himself deeper into his coat.

"Okay...?" John pulls his second pillow—which had managed to sneak under his arm while he was sleeping—behind him, and settles back against the headboard. He's quite awake now. "When you say a blank space..."

Sherlock exhales, bumpily. "I can't remember some...no, quite a lot of things. About that day."

 _That day._ John wrinkles his forehead. "Sorry. I just woke up, so. Help me out?"

"That day you found me." He turns to look at John, pupils contracting against the light. "I'd thought it would be—I thought I'd have remembered everything by now."

"Mmm." John tilts his head back, but does not break eye contact. "You know enough about the human brain to know that sometimes these things just... They just stay lost."

"But it had started to come back." Sherlock wraps his right hand around his throat, pressing his fingers into the skin under his collar. "The other day, I remembered something. Only in fragments."

"Oh." John blinks. "What was it?"

"In the pub. I put my face against the mirror, and it felt the same. It was like the window."

"The window?"

"The one you shot him through," Sherlock says. "But before that."

"That's a bit... Okay. I see how that would be disturbing," John says, because he does remember, and it was.

"It's not enough. I don't remember enough." He pulls his hand away and draws his lapels together, holds them closed. "I still don't know what I did. How I got there."

"Is it important?"

"How do I know?" Sherlock snaps. "That's the point, isn't it? You've got no idea what it's like. It's just—just having a hole where a segment of time is supposed to be."

"I might, actually," John says, mildly. "Only I imagine it's worse, really, when it's you."

Sherlock swallows.

"I don't mean that in a— it's not meant to be patronising." John smoothes the horrible bedspread over his thigh. "It happens with concussion. Or with certain drugs." He shuts his eyes for a moment, and says, "I woke up once in the middle of the desert, and I didn't know how I got there. I was only out for a minute, I think. My head hurt, but I thought I was okay, so I got up."

"What had happened?"

"Stupid, really. We hit a bump in the road. The driver wasn't... I don't know why it happened, really. I hit my head on the gun mount. We were packed in close together. So. I got up, and my head was bleeding... Here's the scar, actually." He turns his head and runs his fingers through his hair to find it, a faint line. "Stopped it bleeding, and again, I thought it was all right. But then I couldn't remember the rest of that day. The part that came before, I mean. So that's... It took me a long time to be okay with that."

"Oh." Sherlock wraps his hands around his knees. "But you are, now."

"I had to be, didn't I?" John chews at a rough spot on his lip, lets it go. "I've had worse. But you... Have you ever lost time before?"

Sherlock's face is very still. Maybe John shouldn't have asked, but he waits. He lets the silence stretch out and watches him through it. "Yes," he says at last. "It. It wasn't like this."

"Ah." John pushes down the questions.

"I have," Sherlock says, pushing his fingers together so the joints hyperextend, "a feeling that this is important. That I've missed something I need to know."

"You told me that it bothered you not to have see him die."

Sherlock exhales, sharply. "No. This is not about  _closure_. I did want—I mean, it did, it does matter, but there's something else. If I remember how it began, if I can just fill in that bit, the rest of it should just..."

"Come back?" John nods. "I can—I mean I have already, to some extent, but maybe not enough—I can tell you what I remember."

"When you found me."

"Yes, if it helps."

"I'm not sure that it would." Sherlock looks away, towards the door. 

John frowns, because he's also not sure. "It isn't something to be ashamed of. Not knowing."

"Isn't it?" Sherlock laughs, but not as if he finds this funny. "Fine, then. What did I say?"

"When? You mean when we came in? I don't know that you even knew who I was, at that point."

"And that disturbed you."

"The whole thing disturbed me, Sherlock. I've told you, I thought you were dead. Thought I might have shot you. So, yes, on the whole, us not having a coherent conversation? Not really the worst thing."

"Not a good thing, though." He studies John's face. "I know you told me he was dead. I couldn't see you, then. I did, though. Know it was you."

"I was trying to stop you bleeding at the time. You weren't very cooperative." He laughs. "Not that you ever are, really."

"No." He sighs. "And then, I don't know. More missing pieces. I think I dreamed."

"You crashed again. We carried you out, and I think you missed all of that." John pushes his head into the pillow. "You're really fucking heavy when you're being dragged up the stairs."

"Dead weight."

"You were. Mrs. Hudson was afraid we were going to drop you. We weren't. Jeff and Alan are quite strong."

"So are you."

"I've had some experience," John says. "Not with stairs, as such, but there are worse things."

"There always are," Sherlock says, but now it sounds as if he's talking about something else.

"Is that...is that of any use to you?" John asks, carefully.

"I don't know."

"I'll be here. So...you can ask me things. If you decide it's important."

"Right."

John looks at his hand, says, "I think I'm going to change this dressing, or I won't be able to get back to sleep."

"Do you need help?"

John gets up and rummages through one of his bags. "You can help me with the tape."  He comes to stand between their beds, and hands Sherlock the roll of tape. "Just two pieces, I think." He winces, carefully peeling the dressing away. "Oh. And the tube of ointment. The cap's a bit difficult with one hand."

Sherlock unscrews the cap and hands it back to him. John applies a dab of ointment to his palm, and rips the sterile gauze packet open with his teeth.

"Not very hygienic," Sherlock remarks, watching him apply it.

"Noted. If it goes septic, I'll be sure to bring a malpractice suit against myself."

Sherlock measures out two lengths of tape, and holds them out. John takes them and smoothes them into place. "Thanks."

He gathers his supplies, and glances back at Sherlock, who is fiddling about with a scrap of tape. "Oh," he says.  _"Oh."_

"Oh, what?" John asks, getting back into his bed.

"Tape. It's the tape."

"Is this a case thing, now?" John asks.

"Very much so." Sherlock stretches himself out flat, and says, "I need to think about this."

John turns out the light.

* * *

The next morning, Sherlock says, "I need you to do something for me." He's still on the bed, still in his coat. John is cleaning his teeth and hunting for his phone at the same time, so he simply nods.

"For the case," Sherlock clarifies. "We need to split up for a bit, but I'll need you to show up and be a distraction."

John find his phone under the bed, and rushes to the sink, just in time to miss coughing foam all over the carpet. He spits. "I'm good at that."

"I'll text you where to be."

"All right. Do I get anything else?"

"Not yet," Sherlock says. "Sorry. It works better if you don't."

"Okay. Why? Is it dangerous?"

"Probably not."

John looks at him. "Probably not," he repeats. "Not dangerous, like the other night?"

Sherlock rolls his eyes. "Not like that. I'm only breaking into something."

John puts his hand on his hip. "Oh. Really?"

"Yes, really. But it has to be done just so. I'll need you to come by at a certain time. That's all."

"Right. So what am I doing before that?" he asks.

"I don't know. Have breakfast. It will take a little while."

"You should eat something, too."

"Not hungry," he says.

John sighs, because they're back to  _this_  again. "Fine." He sits on the edge of the bed and starts putting his shoes on. 'We've got half an hour," he says. "The shower is working today," he adds, pointedly.

"Good." Sherlock heaves himself off the bed and shrugs out of his coat. John is pleased to note that while he may not have slept, he had at least, removed his shoes and socks at some point. He shoulders his way into the bathroom, and then pokes his head back out. "Oh, and I need a phone number."

"Okay?"

"Julia Wills," Sherlock clarifies, and shuts the door.

* * *

John finds a croissant in the dining hall, and watches Sherlock leaving, coffee in one hand, phone in the other. Sally Donovan pulls up a chair beside him, and unwraps a sausage roll. "So," she says.

John looks at her. "So, what?"

"You're still with him," she says, and takes a bite, almost savagely.

"Brilliant observation."

"How sweet. You sound like him, too." She snorts. "Is it worth it, being his dogsbody?"

"Wouldn't be here if it wasn't," he says, folding his arms. "What I still don't see, Sally, is why you care."

She narrows her eyes. "I just wonder, even now, how well you know him."

"You have  _no idea_  what I know," John says, coldly. "One of the things I certainly do know, and that you should  _respect,_  is that after everything that happened, he has chosen to come back to this. Because he thinks it matters."

She says nothing, but her mouth twists.

"I know you don't like him, but he doesn't hold you responsible. I'm not sure I don't, frankly."

She swallows. "I didn't—"

"Let me finish," John says, looking her in the eye. "I know you didn't have all the information when it... When things happened. Okay, I do know that. But the two of you have pretty well hated each other for as long as I've known you, and I cannot help but think that might have made you blind to the possibility that you were wrong. He needed someone to believe him, and in the end, that was only me. After years.  _Years of work_ for you people _."_

"But the evidence was—"

"The evidence was a _lie,_ " John says. "And if any of you had stopped to consider the facts, really  _truly_  consider everything, you would have seen that immediately."

"Greg did," she says, softly.

"Yes, he did. It wasn't any good when you were calling for Sherlock's head, was it? You made him doubt. Just long enough."

"There was the witness," she says. "The girl. We still don't know why she reacted that way. You need to understand—"

"What I  _understand_  is that because you don't like him, because you think there's something  _wrong_  with him, you decided he was a criminal. A murderer. And he wasn't. He's not."

Her eyes are very wide, so John keeps going.

"I think you don't like him because, and stop me if I'm wrong—or don't. No. Don't. I think you don't like him because you always need things to be done a certain way. You want things to be tidy and accountable. And he doesn't work that way. I think you're like the student with a brilliant classmate whom you accuse of cheating because you don't know how he arrived at the answer so quickly. You're clever, Sally, but you're inflexible. For you, there's only one way to do things, and if someone doesn't adhere to that system, god help him."

"There's a reason why we do things a certain way. We have to."

"I know you believe you do."

"No, we have to. Do you have any idea what it's like when someone has committed a crime, and you  _know_  that they're the one, and you can't convict them because you can't prove anything? And maybe they'll do it again, or something worse. While you have to sit there. And if you make a mistake, any tiny procedural mistake, when you  _do_  have the information, you have to let them go."

John nods.

"It's...that there are rules for a reason. Because if we just—we can't just throw procedure aside. All those little things he doesn't care about. If we don't take care of them, we stop bothering with  _all_  the things that matter. Everything goes to hell. And that's the problem. He doesn't _care_ about anyone else."

"But he does care," John says. "Because I  _do_  know him, and he does. He cares greatly. But it's different." He pauses. "It's like. It's like if you're questioning a witness. Someone who's crying. You still have to ask the questions. Someone has to."

"Yes."

"Well, I think...I think sometimes that  _everything's_  like that, for him. On a grand scale. He can't...can't let himself care about the rules or the people. So he just...does what he does. Because  _someone has to do it._  He can't care about the things  _we_  care about, because if he does, he can't solve anything."

"That sounds...mad."

"It does. Not sure I've got it quite right, either. Still, that's what I believe. And if I didn't...well, I wouldn't be here."

"I know you have to tell yourself—" she begins. He cuts her off.

"I don't  _have_  to tell myself anything. He told  _me,_  really. Not in words. He thought he had to die, Sally. He thought he had to die because three people, three people he cared about,  _deeply,_ would die if he did not. I was one of them." He blinks, because his eyes are stinging, but he keeps going. "He's good at solving problems, but he's not very good at consequences. Moriarty fucking ate him alive because he knew that about him.  _He_  was good at strategy. Sherlock can't make it through a simple  _board game_  because he can't be arsed to understand the rules. And it doesn't matter, most of the time, because people like you and me, we make sure the other things are taken care of."

"And he treats us like we're the fucking help."

"I know he's an absolute bastard sometimes. He really can be; I'm not excusing that." He sighs. "I suppose my point is, he's not...he's not a fucking  _sociopath_ , Sally. He's oblivious, and often he's a dick. But he doesn't work the way he does because he's arrogant. He works the way he does because he has to. Most of the time, doing things properly, doing them your way, works just fine. When it doesn't, though, I don't think you've got much choice. That's when you need him, because no one else can do what he does. But you use him, Sally. You all do. You use him, and if he acts like he's doing you a favour, maybe it's because he is. He doesn't care about money or glory or even his own good name. All that matters to him is that he gets it right."

She folds her hands together. "It would be easier if he didn't constantly rub our noses in it."

"And what do you do? You call him a freak. You resent him for the very thing that makes him so useful."

"So, what then? You're his friend because you admire him and no one else does?"

"I'm his  _friend_  because I like him. Yes, I do admire him, and sometimes he drives me insane, but he's a  _proper_  friend. It goes both ways. He takes me exactly as I am, and he doesn't pretend to be anything he isn't." He rubs the back of his neck. "And maybe we're neither of us very good, at times, but...it works."

"I've wondered," she says. "Why you are. I thought... I thought all sorts of things. Maybe they were wrong."

"Maybe so," he agrees. "You don't have to like him. But I think you'll have to learn to work with him. You attending to your details, and he to his."

She sighs. "For what it's worth, I wasn't happy. When he died."

"Of course not. You felt guilty, and then you were angry. We've both been angry for a long time," John says. "Being angry gets you through things, the worst things, but in the end, you've got to stop." His phone buzzes, and he takes it out of his pocket. "You and I, we'll both keep doing our jobs. And maybe we'll find a way to forgive each other."

_As quick as you can. Room 23B. You've been looking for me. Any pretext will do. —SH_

John gets to his feet, and picks up the remains of his pastry. "I have to go now," he says. He does not look back.

* * *

Sherlock pauses in the hallway. This is going to take some finesse, portraying a precise compound of himself and the Real Man people seem so eager to believe in. John's description had been helpful, but clearly the newspaper had proved a distraction. Only one way to find out, really.

He knocks on the door, not at all sharply. It's a muted thing.

Julia Wills  _(should have checked that, check it later)_  is small, dark and carries herself well. She smiles and says, "I know who  _you_  are. Come in."

Sherlock sweeps _(slightly less sweeping than usual, dampen the curve)_  into her spacious office, which is, as expected, furnished with a high, padded table, foam rollers, and a variety of cupboards and clinical—yet—not—quite medical furnishings. She seats herself behind her desk, which is really more of a table, and gestures to a chair opposite.

"Hello," he says. "I was wondering if you could assist me with something."

She smiles again; she smiles a great deal. Nervous? No. Practised. Warm. "Goodness," she says. "Is it serious?"

"Only to me." He leans forward, just a bit. Confiding. "It's nothing to do with my case, actually, although I understand that you've worked with the men who died. It's more of a professional matter. A bit of advice, really."

She tilts her head. "Oh?" And because he notices these things, yes, there it is. A slight glance to the left.

"I was talking to John this morning, and something he said made me think you might not mind. Obviously, if it's not an appropriate request, you must let me know."

"A potentially inappropriate request? I  _am_  intrigued." She laughs. "Clearly he must have told you I have far too much time on my hands."

He smiles back at her, getting the eye crinkle just so. "He did rather imply that. And he's been going on at me about getting an old injury resolved. I'm afraid I've been a very bad patient."

"I see a lot of those," she says. "Believe me. So. What've you got?"

He's got the tone, now. The rest should follow easily. "Well. I am a bit tempted to make you guess. I think it's rather obvious."

She laughs again. "A challenge. All right. Can you take your coat off, for me? There's a hook on the back of the door."

He does so, and stands again before her table. She peers at him for a moment, and says, "Raise your arms."

He does so, feeling the familiar tightness in the left one, although he makes the motion smooth. No need to simply hand it to her. Clearly, she enjoys the game.

"You've done something to your shoulder. Rotator cuff, or no. Collar bone?"

"You  _are_  good," he says. And  _oh,_  he's taken that tone from Irene Adler. "I haven't read the papers, but I imagine that wasn't mentioned."

"Physiotherapists have their own mystical powers of deduction." She raises an eyebrow. "Otherwise, you move very well for a dead man."

"I spent far too long on a sofa," he says, ruefully, "but I've been getting out more, recently."

"Murder—is it murder?—will do that." She picks up a biro, and spins it between her fingers. Strong fingers, naturally. "So. What happened?"

"I broke it when I jumped," he says.  _Feel that. That's real. Verisimilitude._  He lets it go, with a small exhalation. "And I did a very bad job rehabilitating it afterwards."

"Ah." She offers a sympathetic smile. "That's a tricky one, isn't it? Because you're not meant to use your arm at all while it heals. You'd have had soft tissue damage, as well as the fracture."

"Yes. I've got a bit of a... Well, it's a sort of knob, really. Where it mended."

"Hmm." She puts the biro down and clasps her hands together. "Well, I hate to be forward, but would you mind showing me?"

He blinks. He gives it a touch of the startled fawn, but not too much.

"I mean, take your shirt off," she clarifies. "Believe me, I've seen it all. Unless you've got a secret tattoo, in which case I  _shall_  be calling the papers."

"Ah. No, no I haven't." He fleetingly considers his inner arm, but no. It's been—it should be fine. He unbuttons his shirt, much as he would under ordinary circumstances. Well. Perhaps a bit more self-consciously. Which he isn't, really. Carefully, he drapes it over his chair. Habit: it isn't one of his favourites.

She looks at him, pleasantly clinical. "Well," she says. "Clearly you missed the rest and immobilisation period. The good news is, it's not too late to restore some range of motion." She frowns. "Two other things. You've been rubbing it raw. That's quite some irritation you've got there."

He glances down, which is difficult, because his neck is rather tight on that side. "Oh," he says. It is, as it happens, quite raw. "So it is. I've—I must have been scratching it a bit. It itches."

"Hydrocortisone," she suggests. "Not too much; it can makes the skin fragile over time."

He nods. "And the second thing?"

"Can you turn a bit to the left? So I can see your back?"

He swivels his torso. "Like this?"

"Yes." She studies him for a moment. "You're right handed. So what is it that you do that has over—developed your left side?" He turns back. "Not that it's very obvious." She waits.

"I play the violin," he says. "Not recently, but for many years."

"Aha!" Her eyes are alight with a triumph he knows only too well. Deduction, and she's surprisingly good at it. Occupational, of course, but he notes, again, that he's got to tread carefully.

"My posture could be a bit better," he concedes.

"You're not alone in that," she says. "So. I've only got about ten minutes before an incredibly dull meeting—"

_I know._

"—but I have just enough time to show you some exercises that can help you get back up to speed. Is that all right?"

"That would be fantastic," he says. Gratefully.

"Right then. These will all be things you can do on your own when you're at home. No special equipment required."

He allows her to demonstrate a series of movements, with the table, with the wall. He follows her lead as requested, and is chagrined to discover that he is weaker than he'd thought. That's not acceptable, really. So the other thing he'll take away from this—beyond his original purpose—is surprisingly utile.

She's clearly not going to leave him alone in her office, as she gathers her notebook and pencil, so he takes a little longer than necessary struggling with his buttons. He hardly needs to feign this, because he had palmed a collar stay while her back was turned. The benefit of a lower quality shirt is, of course, that the stays are plastic and fairly flexible.

He had already sent his pre-prepared text message to John.

Just as expected, there's a knock on the door. "Goodness, I'm not  _that_  late," Julia says, and pulls it open.

John frowns at Sherlock, who is doing up his cuff—really this couldn't have been better timed—and says,  _"There_  you are! I've come to take you to lunch."

"Sorry," Julia says, hovering by the door. "I've been helping him with that shoulder. He was a lamb, but I've got to go now—"

"It's only sheep's clothing," John says, and taps his foot, meaningfully.

"Let me get my coat," Sherlock says, and carefully places himself so that she'll have to leave first. He unhooks it, slings it over his arm (obscuring the latch and knob rather neatly as he does so), and steps out, pulling it closed behind him. There's a click.

"Thank you," he says. "You've been very helpful."

Julia smiles. "You'll have to let me know how it works out." She bustles away down the hall, leaving Sherlock and John behind her.

"Give it a moment," Sherlock says.

John looks at him. "Do I want to know?"

"I took your advice." Sherlock shrugs his coat back on while scanning the corridor. It is empty. "I hope you didn't really want to have lunch just now."

"Hardly. You said any pretext. It's a bit early, but...seemed appropriate." John shuffles his feet on the carpet. "So. What are we doing?"

"I need you to stand outside this door. Check your messages or something. Make it look plausible. I won't be long."

"Outside the door?"

"Yes." Sherlock grins at him, wolfily. "I've made certain it didn't lock."

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have, of course, invented Julia's office. Suffice it to say that the plastic collar stay trick absolutely does work on certain doors—I've tested it. Let's say, for the sake of argument, that hers is one of them.


	10. Closing Ceremony

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We still don't know what happened to the missing keys to Wembley Stadium. Everything else is addressed if not resolved. Probably.

A woman in a tasteful yellow dress smoothes her brilliantly red hair behind her ears as she awaits her contact in the back of a luxuriously appointed car. 

She’s an old hand at diplomacy, the art of  _quid pro quo._  It’s who you know and how you ask and what you give in return.  She’s given her trust to two men. One she loved until it was no longer politic, and another she’s forgotten how to love and cannot speak to. Two men, both capable of great and terrible things. One asks almost too much, and the other asks nothing at all.  

* * *

He runs over the details with the armed men in black suits; their roles just as crucial as his own. 

Blood calls to blood, and for this he dares to risk his body, his safety, his self. As he goes over his plans, the apparatus, the chemicals, the limits of his own highly trained body, he cannot help but hope that something beautiful comes of what he does. He’s been so dull for so very long, but this will feel like falling when it comes, flames and fear and faith: so soon. 

And if it does go wrong, for him at least, it’s better than rotting away in a Dublin that doesn’t care.

* * *

John stands in front of the door, and he ought to be more concerned than he is. He scans his messages, as suggested, and he’s really quite good at doing two things at once.  Eyes busy, ears vigilant; that’s the army medic’s way. If it’s not someone else’s neck, it’s your own.

Cheerful thoughts, but then, he’s fairly sure Sherlock’s rummaging through cupboards in there because he thinks Julia Wills is a murderer.  

Strange, actually, that in all the time they were talking the other day, she never seemed particularly interested in Sherlock, for all that she knew who he was. Then again, despite being distracted by the paper, John had managed to pick up a hint of artificiality about her. She’d been flirtatious, and perhaps there could have been a time when he’d have leapt at that like anything, but...something wasn’t quite right there. It’s only natural to see that in retrospect, now that she’s a suspect. Or maybe  he’s just a little too emotionally drained to care when reasonably good-looking women want to chat him up. 

Anyway. Harry has been sending him texts that he’d somehow managed to miss yesterday. Well, not  _managed;_  he’d been deliberately ignoring his phone. 

**8:53 AM: He’s still alive? For fuck’s sake, call me.**

**9:25 AM: You’re all over the papers. Hiding out? I would. Call me, though.**

**10:13 AM: Mind that Watson temper. You’re too old to get into fights. Love you anyway. Seriously. Call.**

Bloody hell. It’s going to be like this forever, isn’t it? He’s laboriously typing  _I’m fine, yes he is, I’ll call you soon. I’m at the Olympics. No, really I am_ when the door swings open again. He hits “send.”

Sherlock looks pleased, but also grim. “Two unopened hypodermics and an unmarked bottle. Get Donovan,” he says.

“You think—”

“What else would it be? Call her. Here, use my phone.” Sherlock thrusts it at him, the number already selected. He’s busy doing something to the door latch.

“Sally? Are you sure?” He’s about to hit the call button, but he has to ask.

“She’s here, isn’t she? I’ve left everything _in situ._  She ought to be pleased.” Sherlock glances down the hallway, which is miraculously empty.

“Aside from the break-in,” John points out, because that’s not quite to procedural standards.

“I wasn’t going to wait. We’ve got her, now. That’s what matters.”

It’s ringing, so John declines to comment.

* * *

As they’re waiting for Sally to arrive, Sherlock, who has repossessed his phone, is busy looking something up with flying fingers.

John stands himself against the door. Julia Wills is unlikely to have any weaponry, but he’d really rather not find out the hard way.

“Stupid!” Sherlock groans, tucking his phone away.

“What?” John asks, lightly distracted by a herd of extremely  _leggy_  athletes of some sort—maybe from one of the African countries?—striding towards them down the hall. He nods, they flash him smiles, and they keep going. 

“She was married, of course. Her original name was Julia Swain.”

John looks at him, blankly. “And I should know who that is, because...?”

Sherlock flips him a corner of a smile. “Mm. She was a gymnast before she got her physiotherapist’s license.”

“Ah, okay.” 

“An Olympic gymnast, in fact,” he continues. “Barcelona, 1992. Expected to do well, lost her nerve in the floor event. Whatever that is.”

“I think that’s the one where they tumble and do handsprings or something. No equipment,” John says. 

“Ah." He shrugs. "Anyway. The tape residue being visible in the postmortem photographs was a piece of luck. Could have been a coincidence, but it wasn't. As for opportunity? She had loads. How she got to the men was easy. Clear the moment I walked in there, really.”

“Oh?”

Sherlock snorts. “Tell me, John, did you find her charming? Was she girlfriend material?”

“Who, Julia?”

“Obviously.” He waits.

John feels insulted. “Honestly? I mean, yes, she talked to me. I suppose she  _was_...charming, if you like. But she was overdoing it a bit, in my opinion.” Then it dawns, and he snorts. “Oh god. Tell me she didn’t.”

Sherlock smirks. “What are you insinuating?” 

“No, really. She flirted with you, didn’t she.” John’s laughing now, because—because that’s insane. “And you were doing up your shirt sleeves...”

“She made me take it off,” Sherlock concedes. “But the exercises will no doubt prove to be completely benign.”

“Better show me,” John says, and then finds the image of Sherlock doing PT around the flat funnier than it ought to be. “You can keep your shirt on,” he manages, but barely.

“Having a laugh?” Sally asks, because she’s arrived with DC Jones in tow, and there they are, sniggering like schoolboys.

“We’ve got a murderer,” Sherlock says. “If you’d care to examine the evidence...?”

* * *

 

Julia Wills isn’t smiling when they meet her outside the conference room. And when Sally Donovan starts telling her, “You do not have to say anything, but it may harm your defence...” she gets a bit physical. It’s a good thing that Jones is there, because she’s really quite strong. 

Particularly because Sherlock feels the need to tell her, conversationally, “The Chinese have just taken gold. Liu Fang’s floor routine was quite impressive.”

Her reaction, to him, is more than enough verification. The chemical tests will be a mere (if necessary) formality after that.

And they take her away.

It’s strangely anticlimactic, this. Odd to be standing there, together, in a sunny hallway that still smells strongly of carpet adhesive. The murderer’s gone, the case is solved, and no one’s particularly damaged by the experience—aside from the victims, that is. No ticking clock, no hot pursuit...

Sherlock looks at John, and he thinks,  _You’re disappointed._ Which is interesting, and also, perhaps, a good sign.  

“Come on then,” he says. “Dinner, and I’ll tell you the rest.”

* * *

“So you’re saying the first two were  _practice runs?_ ” 

“Precisely.” Sherlock says, using his wooden chopsticks as a scoop. It’s not a very elegant process; there’s more sauce than rice on his plate.  “Her ultimate goal was to get to Anne.”

“Through her mother? Why would she have taken it, though? I mean, you said yourself that her injection was clearly self-administered.” John frowns. 

“The key was, as you say, that it was  _through_  her. The paranoia of the Chinese Olympic authorities made it quite impossible for Julia Wills to have unchaperoned access to Anne. Lin would have accompanied her to every therapy session. Her mother, on the other hand, would have been free to see her alone, and did. Apparently she’d been having some difficulties with her back.” He takes a long swallow of tea, and continues. “Where Julia went wrong, however, was in her misunderstanding of Liu Jie’s relationship with her daughter. She wanted Anne to succeed because she felt her options would be limited if she remained in China. An ordinary defection would have been impossible, but an athletic success might give her enough status to negotiate a certain degree of freedom in future. Julia saw her dedication in the wrong light. The very devotion that made Liu Jie susceptible to taking a risk in the first place also made her unwilling to risk administering an unknown substance to her daughter without testing it herself, first.”

“That seems...vaguely commendable, but also completely mad. Why risk it at all?” 

“We may never know precisely what was said or done to persuade her.” Sherlock says. “But we know that this was Anne’s last year in competition. As for the rest...well, desperation leads to strange choices. Athletes and the people around them lead very focussed lives. They set sanity at a different standard.”

“Clearly,” John says, thinking of Werner Achen and Jack Cutter. “So, I’d imagine the other two were fairly easy. Jack Cutter had neglected his training, and had too many sponsorship commitments to fail.”

“Yes. And the evidence suggests he was neither risk-averse nor terribly concerned about the rules. Not once his father died.”

“And Werner Achen was desperate enough to do anything,” John suggests. “His relationship was in ruins, he was trained to compete with the wrong hand...which I still don’t understand; not really. Oh, and his medication could have made things worse: depression, fatigue, and possible sexual side effects. Not exactly helpful to an athlete, or a man who’s having marital difficulties. I suppose he presented the perfect opportunity.”

“Yes,” Sherlock agrees. “I’m sure the process was fairly straightforward. She’d begin by making conversation about the issue of performance enhancement in sport. They’d have disapproved, on general principle, but then they’d be thinking about the possibilities. Later, she’d make the point that legislating pharmaceuticals can be seemingly arbitrary—an argument that both men would be susceptible to: Achen, because his beta blocker was approved for  _his_  sport, but outlawed in others; Cutter, because of his history of recreational cannabis use.  Having established that the moral landscape was negotiable, curiosity would set in. After that, it’s a rather brief journey to experimentation.”

“And the deaths were close enough together that Achen wouldn’t have known what he was getting into.” John pokes at his remaining dumpling, which is growing cold.  “But you really think it would have been that easy? To get them to risk their lives?”

“I do, yes. She would have made it sound plausible. You and I both know that many substances are toxic at levels just above the therapeutic dosage. She might have shown them any sort of corroborative data, and then administered a larger dosage.” He pauses, and adds, “I don’t have to imagine what it’s like to know that a simple chemical compound could mean the difference between competence and excellence.”

John thinks about the things he could say— _until it doesn’t; until it becomes the most important thing; until it_ kills _you_ —and decides to leave it. “So, Anne, then. What was the point of that?”

Sherlock shrugs. “Judging from Julia’s reaction when I told her of Anne’s success, I imagine her motivation was a sordid cocktail of jealousy and long-standing shame. The men were not only easy targets; they were expendable because she despised them. Her emotional instability was also her undoing, because she made mistakes.  She was enough of a planner to secure the drug —and it’s possible she tested it at lower levels long before she had access to the Olympic Village—but she didn’t take into account the fact that Liu Jie would test the drug on  _herself_  rather than administering it to her daughter. By then, the timetable was completely ruined. She couldn’t risk another attempt before Anne’s final event, and people were starting to talk too much. She took the precaution of approaching you in a social context, because of your affiliation with me. That attempt at damage control was a further mistake. She’d have done better to stay out of sight. Finally, she should have disposed of the evidence, but she didn’t.“

* * *

 

“Into the lion’s den,” Mycroft remarks, as they make their way towards the Olympic Stadium in his long black sedan. “The media will be present, of course, but I think you’ll find they are otherwise occupied.” 

“Does that mean we can go home after this?” John asks, because although they’ve been moved out of the horrible hotel and into a nicer one, he’d really appreciate a night in his own bed, in his own flat.  _Their_  own flat. 

“You may,” Mycroft says. “Oh, and I took the liberty of sending Mrs. Hudson on holiday while you were away. Should you become concerned.”

“That’s...kind of you,” John says, because it was a decent thought. 

Sherlock is busy looking out the window as his city rushes past, hand hooked in the collar of his shirt. 

“She’s a bit too old to be holding off the media on her own,” the elder Holmes agrees. 

“You underestimate her abilities,” Sherlock contributes, briefly glancing their way. “Typically.”

“Be that as it may.” Mycroft clears his throat, and returns his attention to John. “I’ve been wanting to talk to you about something.”

“Okay,” John says, easily. 

“The Royal Free Hospital position.”

“Ah. Sorry. Yes. I haven’t...” John glances at Sherlock, who is still resolutely faced away, but he fancies he sees a tension in the lines of his neck that was not present previously. “I failed to contact them.

“Quite.” Mycroft sighs, but not very heavily. “I’m afraid that particular position is no longer available.”

 “That’s, ah...understandable. So that  _was_  you, then. I thought as much.”

“I advised him to accept it anyway,” Sherlock says, without moving. 

“It was me,” Mycroft agrees. “But you should know that I never would have submitted your name had I thought you were in any way unsuited to the work.”

Sherlock looks at his brother, then. “Which I  _also_  told him.” 

John frowns. “We’re talking about my life. Specifically,  _mine.”_

“It should be,” Mycroft agrees, dryly. “Is it, though?” 

“Says the man who wants to  _direct_  it now. Thanks for that—” John begins, but is cut off by Sherlock. 

“If this is what you want, do it. Other opportunities can be found.” He looks meaningfully at his brother. “Can’t they.”

Mycroft says nothing, but folds his hands over his umbrella handle. It isn’t raining, which is no doubt a relief to the Olympic Committee.

“The thing is,” John says, looking at Sherlock, which should be the easier option, but now that he’s started, it isn’t somehow. ”I’m not entirely sure that it  _is_  what I want.” He glances at his hands, spread on his knees, bandages peeling, right palm itching. “Filling in at the clinic was something to do. And working in trauma, well, it’s very nearly what I did before. I was good at it. Damned good, actually. But.” He clears his throat. “While I want to be of use—all right,  _need_  to be of use—I’m not sure this is the answer. I’m not the man I used to be.”

“If you’re worried about your ability, or your  _dexterity,_ ” Sherlock says, but John cuts him off, rather firmly.

“No. Listen. I’ve been thinking about this. And god knows I need the money—”

“You don’t,” Sherlock interjects, but Mycroft raises his hand.

“—but it’s not going to work, is it? Because if I’m going to keep...” he waves, vaguely, at Sherlock, at the car around them. “If I’m going to keep doing whatever  _this_  is, I can’t take on that sort of work. It wouldn’t be fair. To them. To my patients. To you. To  _me,_  actually. So. I’ll...I’ll have to work something out. And I will. But when I do, it will be on my terms.”

“Which brings us to another point entirely,” Mycroft says. “You were reasonably successful at running a consultancy before this—”He clears his throat. “Before the events of this past year. But if you wish to continue on in this vein,” he adds, looking pointedly at Sherlock, “You will need to renegotiate, by which I mean, actually,  _properly_  negotiate, your arrangement with New Scotland Yard.”

“Oh?” Sherlock says. His mouth is set in a line.

“Yes. They’ve been rather adamant about that. If you continue to work with them, you will need a proper contract, and your conduct will be held to a certain standard. This need not prevent you from working for members of the public, or indeed, for me. But it will protect you and the police from the sort of difficulties you encountered previously.”

“Moriarty’s dead,” Sherlock says, quietly.

“So he is. But the damage has been done. The public will require a  _bona fide_  gesture of sorts. Which leads me to yet another point. You will need to attend a set number of press events before you are able to continue.”

John cannot restrain a faint groan at this.

“Both of you, preferably. I trust this will not present a problem?” It’s clear that it had better not. 

“Fine,” Sherlock says. “Obviously not a choice.”

“Unfortunately not.” Mycroft looks at John. “I have already laid the way, to some extent. A brief will be provided.”

“Of course it will. Anything to prevent embarrassment.”

“Anything to ensure  _your_   _safety,”_  Mycroft corrects his brother. “I made an error before. It will not happen again.”

And Sherlock has the good grace not to contradict him. 

After a long tense silence, during which John imagines a great deal of silent negotiation is taking place, Mycroft says “I apologise for failing to mention it before, but I have been assured that your work with the Yard will be paid to a set schedule.” His eyes flick over to John. “You, as well. Should you wish to be included.”

“I...As what?”

“Also as a consultant. Again, should you wish.”

John grits his teeth. “Really. Because I’d hate to think this was just another fancy way to institutionalise a role as some sort of glorified minder for your brother. I am his  _friend.”_

“And colleague,” Sherlock puts in.

“Yes. And that,” he agrees. He remembers the term had annoyed him once before. It doesn’t now.

“To the best of my knowledge, you have saved his life on at least two occasions.”

“More than twice,” Sherlock says, but does not elaborate.

“And you also know that he would do—has done—the same for me.”  _Just not in the same way._

“I am aware.  Regardless. Your own  _specific_  contributions have not gone unrecognised. I hesitate to repeat DI Lestrade’s specific phrasing, but it seems that you are valued and respected. There is a place for you in this scheme, should you desire it.”

“What can I—what do you  _want_  me to say?” But he doesn’t look at Mycroft. He looks at Sherlock, and his face is terribly, carefully blank. John sighs. “Right. Okay, yes, then.” 

And Sherlock nods, once, briefly, eyes on John. After a moment, he remarks, “The price of petrol being what it is, I have to wonder how many more times we’re going to make this loop.”

“Once more should be sufficient,” Mycroft says. “One final request, for now.”

“Only one?” John snorts. 

“During the ceremony, there will be a minor diversion. I’d appreciate it if you don’t interfere.”

“Oh?” Sherlock says. “Mixing business with popular entertainment, brother dear? I should have suspected as much.”

“I’ve made an arrangement with an old school friend of the Prime Minister. She has something I need, and in return, we’ll be overlooking a brief...irregularity involving a North Korean athlete.”

Sherlock raises an eyebrow.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Mycroft says, cryptically. “I can tell you this, though: it won’t be boring.”

* * *

Rank hath its privileges. Their seats are good ones. 

Sherlock is clearly bored by the musical entertainments, although his running commentary (delivered largely to John, because Mycroft is steadfastly ignoring them) is an amusement in its own right. John laughs, loudly and often. 

It occurs to him that Mrs. Hudson is probably watching this, wherever she is, and that makes him feel warm, and yes, a touch sentimental. It’s unreal, frankly, to be sitting here with Sherlock, very much alive, and his brother, very much an enigma, but also a tired, somewhat relieved-looking man in a good suit which is probably too woollen for the weather. Something strange is going to happen—it’s bound to—but that’s a good thing. It’s all right. 

He feels that he’s going to sleep perfectly well tonight, for once. The music is pounding so loudly he can feel it in his chest, and the light show is making his head spin, but he  _will._  

Last night, Sherlock had gone down to the hotel bar and ordered a whisky after they’d finished their paperwork over the case, and then further alarmed John by standing in the bathroom with the lights out and the door open for a very long hour, only to emerge and say, “It’s no good.” And consequently, John had spent far too long staring at the ceiling in the dark, wondering whether he dared inquire, knowing he’d said enough already the last time. Because there are some things a man has to do for himself, and maybe it was enough simply to be there. Just in case.

In the morning, John felt another brief stab of panic when he saw blood slowly blooming through the fabric at the neck of Sherlock’s white shirt as he poured himself a coffee. He was halfway across the room before he realised that (a) it wasn’t  _much_  blood and (b) the damage was wholly self-inflicted. And then they had a slightly uncomfortable chat—fine, a  _lecture_ , delivered by John—about nervous habits and antibiotic cream with lidocaine and letting things heal.

But now he seems all right. Possibly well, even. And John thinks,  _I made that choice a long time ago. He said danger, and I said yes. God knows where he’ll lead us now, but it won’t be dull. Restrictions or no restrictions. Paperwork and procedures and all. We’re not dead._

And Sherlock rolls his eyes at the Spice Girls and the dancers and the Union Jack in lights, and Mycroft surprises them both by laughing explosively during the tribute to Freddie Mercury.

The athletes stream past in endless ranks, the Americans and Germans in black arm bands, the Chinese in white. Anne is bearing her country’s flag, and Sherlock glances at Mycroft, who nods ever-so-slightly but says nothing. 

They’re extinguishing the torch when it happens.

He moves in a blur, leaping out of the crowd towards the centre of things. Small and quick, with a suspicious looking bundle strapped to his body, and before anyone can think to stop him, he’s up and away, scaling the bronze cauldron as it folds. Everything around him seems to freeze as their eyes rise up, because that  _can’t be real._ He gets to the top, and he’s unfurling  _wings_  of some sort, and he’s got a metal cylinder in his hands—

—and it’s fire raining down with a whistling sound, and something in John desperately cries out,  _Get down_ , but he stands his ground, he watches the rain become flowers, golden and strange and like nothing he knows—

—with a crack, and Sherlock sees hours in seconds, a death and a life; a darkness,  _a year_  dispelled by a voice, by a hand, by the light _—oh, that’s what I lost—_

—they stand with their faces turned up towards the sky except his, except hers. A Chinese girl presses a medal into her taller companion’s hand with whispered thanks and darts away, threading adeptly through the crowd. A North Korean man steps backwards and is suddenly engulfed by a waiting cluster of government men and one woman with blazing red hair—

—and he smiles as he glides out over the waiting sea of people on stretched silken wings, adrenaline singing through his veins, because at last, he’s got it right, and it’s so fucking  _beautiful_ and things can and will only get better from here—

And it’s dark.

“So that’s that,” Mycroft says, because while perhaps the pyrotechnics and the aerial acrobat were not  _strictly_  necessary, they did not detract from the tone of the evening. Two defections successfully underway despite last-minute adjustments, a contented public, and no further fatalities. He permits himself to feel pleased.

* * *

Three days later, a parcel arrives at 221B, addressed to Sherlock Holmes. It’s a box wrapped in brown paper, from a Kensington address. Inside, wrapped in a duty free bag, there’s a smaller box and a perfumed note  _(Casmir_  by Chopard) on expensive cream-coloured paper that says, simply “Thank you.” 

And inside that box, wrapped in tissue, there’s a wooden figurine. It’s a tiger.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Imagine my surprise when I finally got around to looking at footage and descriptions of the Real Life 2012 closing ceremonies, only to discover that one of the components was very much like what I had envisioned. In my defence, I’ve always had an unhealthy obsession with Icarus. Theirs was a phoenix, but the parallels are unmistakable. I’m afraid it also makes me tear my hair out, because it makes it clear(er?) that one of my characters was unnecessary. But I built a red herring, and by god, I had to see him through. Poor man. I’ll let him get back on the ferry now.
> 
> Thanks for reading. And also, my apologies.
> 
> This is the story that became unnecessarily complicated. And because I am, at heart, a realist, that annoyed me. But thinking about WHY that annoyed me was rather useful, in the end. 
> 
> Because the interesting thing about the television series, and arguably the canon literature as well, is that these stories are only ostensibly about solving crime. We very rarely see someone resolving a mystery in a genuinely effective way. A world of dramatically entertaining improbability demands an equally illogical response, it seems. No one ever does anything the easy way. Sherlock acquires and analyses data very rapidly, but not, in fact, very efficiently. The illusion is provided by the speed differential between him and everyone else. Slow him down, and it becomes clear that there’s an awful lot of chaos going on. When Sherlock and Moriarty occupy the same space, for example, no one does anything even remotely sensible. Intuition and emotion drive everything.
> 
> We don’t see the daily reality of police work much. There’s almost always a dramatic discovery, a dangerous confrontation, and destruction of property or people. Thinking about this aspect allowed me to feel that I finally “get” Sally Donovan. I’ve written a piece over on Tumblr describing my interpretation of her. I won’t include it here, as it’s a full page of text. It’s a vaguely mathematical metaphor.
> 
> One of the things that makes the Sherlock Holmes oeuvre (past and present) so compelling is that while the stories are set around cases, and feature interesting information and cunning detection techniques, the real focus is the PEOPLE. Trying to do anything else rips out the heart of the story. Yes, I know, a proper fan should have said “burns.” ;)
> 
> I love information. Okay, I’m obsessed with information. I am constantly torn between writing things that are technically correct, and writing things that are entertaining. Taking on something set in the Olympics was a massive mistake. I spent far too long agonising over specific details, and then I finally gave myself permission to make this what it really wants to be: a story about people trying to put themselves and each other back together after everything’s been blown apart. It’s a life-long project. It’s a different sort of work. The case was, ultimately, not nearly as interesting to me. 
> 
> After much inactivity, I jumped back in, and started ripping through this story like a tornado. And the results are uneven and flawed. But hey, it’s done! I did accomplish some of the things I wanted to do: Lestrade and Sherlock meet again, Sally and John finally have it out, and of course, Sherlock and John inch a little further down the endless path of...whatever it is that they’re doing.
> 
> My next story is called Things That Do Not Die. I've been writing bits of it for months, and it's what I've been yearning to do while hating the Olympics and struggling to finish A Thing Without a Name. I think—I hope—it will be much better than this one has been. I’ll be dusting off another canon character, doing a postmortem on another, and revelling unabashedly in secrets, lies, emotional hellscapes and lengthy consequences to hasty actions. If there’s something you, the reader, would like to see, let me know. I can’t promise I’ll deliver, but I’ll take anything under consideration. 
> 
> I have so many people to thank that to do so individually would take forever. Suffice it to say that every one of you who comments and/or corresponds with me has made a valuable contribution—be it asking useful questions, helping me with foreign languages I don’t know, or simply reminding me that I’m leaving people hanging. My greatest thanks go to WhenISayFriend, who is an inspiration, an invaluable critic, and a fantastic friend.
> 
> Oh, and I really do have to finally thank The Boy, who puts up with my erratic hours, caffeinated hijinks, and obsessive tendencies. Sorry I didn’t include ALL of the tigers and innuendo you requested. Just write your own stories, already!


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